| LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. j 

* : — # 

J UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Jj 



SERMONS. 



SEKIONS 



BT THE LATE 



ALEXANDER MCCLELLAND, D. D. 



EDITED BT 

KICHAKD W. DICKINSON, D. D. 



NEW YOKK: 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 
No. 530 Broadway. 
1 8 6 7. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 18S7, by 
liOBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 
in the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New York. 



Camfattige -press. 
Dakij ajcd M e t c a l 1". 



PREFACE. 



Alexander McClelland was remarkable in his 
youth for his great facility in learning, and the rapid de- 
velopment of his mental faculties. Having received his 
collegiate education at Union, Schenectady, he commenced 
his preparatory studies for the ministry of the gospel at 
Pittsburgh, Pa., under the care of the late Rev. John Ander- 
son, d. d., of the Associate Presbyterian Church ; but, 
owing to the superior advantages which the Theological 
Seminary of the Associate Reformed Synod then presented 
at New York, he availed himself of the earliest opportunity 
of attending the lectures of the late Dr. John M. Mason. 
It was in connection with that seminary he completed his 
course ; and when but nineteen years of age he was licensed 
by the Associate Reformed Presbytery to preach the gospel. 
Shortly after this — in 1815 — he was ordained and installed, 
and became the successor of the late Dr. Philip Milledoller 
in the pastorate of the Presbyterian Church, then situated 
in Rutgers street in the city of New York. After the 
lapse of seven years (during which period he sustained 
himself in the duties of his charge with distinguished ability? 
and growing reputation as a preacher), he was elected to 

A* 



TI 



PREFA CE. 



the Professorship " of Rhetoric, Logic, and Metaphysics " 
in Dickinson College, at Carlisle, Pa. Thither he moved 
with his family in 1822 ; and there remained, applying 
himself with marked assiduity to the duties of his profes- 
sorship, and securing increasing influence over the minds 
of his students, until, in 1829, he removed to New Bruns- 
wick, New Jersey, where, in connection, at first with Rut- 
gers College as " Professor of Languages," and afterwards 
with the Theological Seminary of the Dutch Reformed 
Church in the department of " Oriental Literature and 
Biblical Criticism," he spent the greater part of his remain- 
ing days. His death — preceded by a gradual paralysis of 
all his organs — occurred in the sixty-ninth year of his age, 
on the nineteenth day of December, 1864. 1 

He was in some respects better fitted for the profes- 
sor's chair than the pastoral office, — at least so he himself 
thought, — and, on this account, retained his professorship at 
Carlisle, though repeatedly invited to resume a charge, and 
unanimously called to the First Presbyterian Church at 
Philadelphia, when rendered vacant by the death of Dr. 
James Wilson. 

Still, Dr. McClelland continued to preach at intervals, — 
though oftener than otherwise in some retired place, and 
where he was not expected. Being averse to having him- 
self announced, he was seldom forward to make a timely 
engagement. 

1 On the sixth of August, 1816, he was married to the eldest 
daughter of the late Charles Dickinson, of the city of New York, 
who still survives him, with six of their children, — two sons and 
four daughters. 



PBEFA CE. 



VII 



He was reluctant, moreover, to publish any particular 
sermon or lecture ; not so much through fear of criticism 
(though he was nervously sensitive to the least flaw that 
might be detected), as from the consciousness of not having 
satisfied his own mind, — so high was his standard of excel- 
lence in the lecture-room as well as in the pulpit, and so 
irksome to him the labor of preparing a manuscript for the 
press. , 

Whatever he might have accomplished in other relations, 
in this respect he disappointed his friends. They had antici- 
pated some great work from his pen ; but, with the exception 
of a few racy articles for newspapers, he has left in print 
only "A brief Treatise on the Canon and Interpretation of 
the Scriptures ; " a pamphlet on " The Marriage Question ; " 
together with two discourses, — the one on "A Standing Min- 
istry ; " the other, " A Vindication of the Religious Spirit 
of the Age," — both written and preached during the period 
of his youthful pastorate. 

But whoever may have read these discourses will respond 
to our expression of regret that Dr. McClelland had not 
selected and revised a given number of manuscript sermons 
for the press. 

Though hearers differ in their views of the merits of a 
particular sermon, and their judgment is not unfrequently 
strangely biased, — some preferring that which cost the least 
expense of studious preparation, or that which has merely 
captivated the fancy; yet no one is so competent a judge 
of his own written utterances for the pulpit as the preacher 
himself, — that is, if he be a man of disciplined thought, and 



VIII 



PREFA CE. 



critical acumen. He alone knows what object, in reliance 
on God's grace, he proposed to himself in essaying a par- 
ticular discourse ; and whether it is in the clearest, strongest 
manner, according to his ability, adapted to that end. In 
proportion to its adaptedness, not to display mental re- 
sources, nor to secure a brilliant reputation ; but, in keep- 
ing with the great design of the gospel ministry, to bring 
home Bible-truth to the„heart and the life, — will be its 
merits in the view of him who can conscientiously say : " I 
believe, and therefore speak." 

The Bible never violates its unity of design. The Old 
Testament is contained in the New, and the New Testament 
in the Old ; and whether our attention be directed to ceremo- 
nial enactments or to evangelical requisitions, — to prophecy 
or to miracles, — to a fact, a character, an incident, an argu- 
ment, or a saying, — to the tables of the decalogue, or the - 
precepts of the gospel, — to Moses or to Christ, — it is mani- 
fest that the Scriptures have but one and the same object; 
that is, to guide us into the way of eternal life. Thus, the 
author of these sermons, though wont to select his texts from 
different parts of the Old Testament as well as the New, seems 
to have been guided in the disposition of his thoughts on any 
given topic, by the drift of Eevelation or the analogy of 
Scripture, — showing its subservience to evangelical truth 
and duty ; and sometimes disclosing, but in a manner quite 
unexpected to his hearers,- its designed, if not necessary, 
relation to the Alpha and Omega, or to its scriptural bear- 
ing on the future of the soul. 

Still, he must have been an exception from all preachers, had 



PRE FA CE. 



IX 



he not had his favorite texts or subjects, and his preferences 
among his mental productions. But his manuscripts disclose 
no marks by which we may ascertain whether he preached 
some more than others ; or whether any one among them was 
at any time uttered in public. Devoid of a single entry, — such 
as ministers are accustomed to make, and which, in some in- 
stances, amount to scores, — a stranger, on examining the 
manuscripts, might conclude, from the hue of the paper, or 
from some local reference or allusion to the events of the 
day, that, though written at different periods of his history, 
they were never delivered. Yet, independently of my own 
recollection, I have, on inquiry, ascertained from several 
ministers of standing in different churches, that these are 
some of the sermons he was accustomed to use after his 
retiracy from the pastoral office. A few of them, though 
comparatively of less intrinsic value, — having owed the in- 
terest they awakened at the time of their delivery mainly 
to the force of circumstances, — are so well remembered, 
that to withhold them would be to disappoint. Nor have I 
felt at liberty to modify a sentiment, much less suppress any 
view of a mooted point as found in the manuscripts, lest 
the writer should not be immediately recognized by those 
who have been most desirous of their publication. I find, 
however, from various interlineations and transpositions in 
his unmistakable chirography, that some of the manuscripts 
have been subjected to successive corrections, with here and 
there either an erasure or addition ; and that several have 
been re-written with special care. 

Bearing, then, the impress of his intellect and the charac- 



X 



PREFA CE. 



teristics of his style, no less clearly than serving to convey 
to the inquiring mind the grounds of his faith and the use 
he was wont to make of the ethical element in Christianity, 
they may be viewed as constituting a fair specimen of his 
pulpit utterances. 

It comes not within our province, in simply editing these 
sermons, to analyze their character, or formally estimate 
Dr. McClelland's merits as a preacher of the gospel. Suf- 
fice it to say, that, aside from his " eccentricities," so called, 
which failed not to attract notice, and his not unfrequent 
forms of expression, which were apt to be repeated, — thus 
rendering minds of a certain class not a little curious to 
hear him, — it were to be expected that a man who could 
deliver his sermons from memory with the earnestness of 
one whose mind is surcharged with his subject, with the 
naturalness and ease of an extemporaneous speaker, — hav- 
ing, too, a voice of unusual flexibility, fulness, and power, 
adapted to the appropriate expression of every sentiment, — 
would awaken an interest in the community, and become 
noted for the style and manner of his preaching. 

He himself could not endure either declamation or misti- 
ness in the pulpit, much less prosing. If he was careful to 
avoid any one thing, it was preaching in such a way that no 
one could understand him, or take an interest in what he 
said ; much more of exposing himself to any invidious 
reflection on his understanding. This was so characteristic 
of him, that he might have appropriated the language of 
old Harrington : " There is nothing in the world, next to 
the favor of God, I so much desire as to be understood." 



P RE FA CE. 



XI 



On one occasion, after a service, he said to the minister 
who had occupied the pulpit : " Will you be good enough, 
sir, to tell me what you meant by that expression ? I did 
not understand you ; and I doubt whether your Master did." 

Again: while delivering a' charge to a young minister 
just installed, he said : " I know it is by the foolishness of 
preaching that it has pleased God to save them that believe ; 
but be careful, young man, be careful lest you should make 
your preaching too foolish ! " 

It was, perhaps, owing to this, — his aversion to stereo- 
typed forms, his nervous dread of even approaching to 
monotony and tediousness in the pulpit, — that he at times 
verged to the other extreme : resorting to irony, to a stroke 
of humor, a sarcastic allusion, a quaint story, or employing 
phrases but too obvious in their import and too well fitted to 
divert the mind of an audience from the weighty subject to 
which their attention had been called. 

Aside from this, and however much the more serious 
among his auditors might have thought that he occasionally 
deviated too far from that grave propriety of utterance 
which becomes the pulpit, yet to hear him was to be 
arrested by the manner of his discourse : preaching as he 
did in his early and best days with the freshness and fervor 
and vigor of a mind that, smitten with the love of truth, 
works out its own thoughts and conclusions ; with the 
solemnity of one whose soul is overborne with a sense of 
spiritual realities ; with the boldness and fidelity of one who 
is " determined to know nothing," while addressing dying 
sinners, " but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." 



XII 



PKEFA CE. 



Adhering strictly to his text, he was, by turns, argument- 
ative, expository, descriptive, inferential, and experimental : 
having cultivated his imagination no less than his powers of 
reasoning, and disciplined his faculties to habits of phi- 
losophic observation as well as to rigorous method in the 
investigation of truth : thus securing to his pulpit clearness, 
strength, variety, and aptness of illustration ; and, had it 
not been for that vein of sarcastic humor in which he was 
so prone to indulge, rendering his ministrations in all re- 
spects adapted to wide-spread usefulness and permanent 
results. 

The pulpit essentially differs from the bar or the plat- 
form in the temper of its utterances. Not that it should 
lack directness, vividness, and force ; but what is allowable, 
if not necessary, in other relations of public speaking, in this 
is always questionable ; and we are the less reluctant to 
note the distinction, not merely because the high and serious 
end which the pulpit contemplates would seem appropri- 
ately to require words of soberness as well as of truth, but 
also from the fact that whatever in figurative language, in 
illustration, or in terms, is of doubtful propriety in the utter- 
ances of some conspicuously popular preacher, is wont, by 
amusing or infecting the imagination, to mislead the judg- 
ment of some youthful candidate for the ministry. Thus, 
whenever any of Dr. McClelland's youthful admirers es- 
sayed to imitate him, it was in his peculiarities rather than 
in those qualities which constituted his real excellence as a 
preacher, — excellence so decided, that allowance could be 
made even by those who would rather he had omitted his 



PRE FA CE. 



XIII 



episodes of irony, or reserved his sarcasm for a different 
occasion ; an allowance, be it considered, never extended to 
those who can rise no higher than abortive attempts at imi- 
tation. 

But notwithstanding his propensity to excite a smile at 
the expense of some one or other, and which, from neglect 
of timely efforts to control, became a chronic affection of 
mind, he was rich in thought, evangelical in doctrine, in 
general practical, and, at times, searching in his analysis 
of the carnal mind ; never ministering encouragement to 
unscriptural hopes, nor failing to expose the sophistries of 
error and rebut the cavils of infidels. Few, if any, of his con- 
temporaries, during the early years of his ministry, could 
be more instructive than he on any given point of duty; 
more graphic in the description of a scene or delineation of 
a character ; more affecting in showing forth the Saviour's 
dying love, or impressive in addressing dying men, when 
eternity, with its vast realities, seemed to fill the sphere of 
his vision. 

In the course of preparation for his successive professor- 
ships, his studies necessarily assumed a wider range. He 
had resumed and extended his classical readings ; examined 
the various systems both of' ancient and modern philoso- 
phy; watched the progress of scientific investigation, and 
noted whatever was valuable in the literature of his day ; 
but the deeper his acquaintance with mind, under the nat- 
ural conditions of its development, the higher his apprecia- 
tion of the Bible. In it was exhaustless material for 
thought ; repose for the reason ; food for the soul, nowhere 



XIV 



PREFA CE. 



else to be found. To its divine authority he bowed with 
docility in all matters of faith ; for its teachings inculcated 
the deepest reverence ; and, inclined as he was to specula- 
tive thought, fond of broaching a theory for the sake of 
social discussion, or testing one's ability to reply, yet, in his 
serious hours, he never travelled in thought beyond the in- 
spired record : thus devoutly recognizing the limits of legiti- 
mate speculation in relation to God and the soul. 

In his judgment, no veneration for the Bible could be 
relied on as firm and effective, that is not founded on a deep 
and intimate acquaintance with its treasures. No one can 
be proof against the suggestions of " an evil heart of unbe- 
lief," and much less the imposing theories and malign insin- 
uations of modern skepticism, who has not subjected him- 
self to the same discipline by which the babe in Christ 
grows up to be a healthy, vigorous man in Christ. Hence, 
where the biblical studies of too many end, his began, and 
were continued at intervals, notwithstanding the pressure of 
other studies, until, during the period of his last professor- 
ship, his Bible became, as it were, a part of his intellectual 
self. A union seemed to be effected between his very 
thinking substance and the favorite subjects of its medita- 
tions, which, to use his own expression, " all the chemistry 
of hell could not dissolve." 

Other ends are to be answered by the use of " the lively 
oracles of God," than to abstract from them a few simple 
propositions, like " algebraic formulas or gastronomical rec- 
ipes." Error is to be respected rather than " a puffy, empty, 
gossiping Christianity." The motives which the Bible pre- 



PREFA CE. 



XV 



sents to deter from sin are fearful enough to the mind of 
serious thought, without investing " the doctrine of ever- 
lasting punishment " with material terrors. Truth, however 
it may be assailed by its enemies, can be injured only by its 
friends. These, and similar views, expressed in his peculiar 
way, did not always convey the most felicitous idea either 
of his orthodoxy or brotherly love. But his occasional way 
of noticing any turgid representation of a doctrine, of treat- 
ing some miserable conceit, or of exposing the weak points 
of an argument even when advanced in behalf of an or- 
thodox point, only proved, to those who knew him, not the 
unsoundness of his faith, but that he had unwittingly ren- 
dered himself " an offender for a word." 

For many years he preached but seldom. It was often 
difficult to prevail on him to accept an invitation ; nor would 
he preach unless thoroughly prepared. Here is the secret 
of that degree of pulpit excellence to which he attained, — 
it was by study. From my earliest recollection of him, he 
was a close student ; and, in the whole course of my associ- 
ation with ministers of the gospel, I have seldom met with 
one who bestowed more thought on a discourse, or expended 
more time in preparation for a particular service. It 
seemed to be his settled conviction, that no one could re- 
fresh, much less kindle and elevate, an audience but by 
real thought ; and this could be attained only by the patient 
application of a well-disciplined and richly-stored mind to the 
fundamental principles of Christian faith and practice. 

What were the precise results of his early ministry we 
are unable to state. The greater part of those to whom he 



XVI 



PREFA CE. 



then ministered preceded him to the grave. The influence 
of his public life, therefore, will be perpetuated rather 
through those who, during their collegiate or their theologi- 
cal course, enjoyed his instructions and heard his lectures, 
than by any who but occasionally heard him preach ; though 
all, who either attended his classes or retain the recollection 
of any sermon they might have chanced to hear, will be 
gratified to know that some of his productions were not 
included in the contents of the old " hair trunk " which he 
" bequeathed to the flames." 

R. W. D. 

New York, Jan. 2, 1867. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

1. Ps. xcvii. 1. The Lord Reigneth, . . . ■ . . . 1 

2. Dan. xi. 32. The Source of Moral Strength, . . 23 

3. James i. 13. God neither Tempts nor is Tempted, . . 53 

4. Eom. v. 13. The Great Problem, 77 

5. Gen. xxvii. 35. The Blessing Obtained by Fraud, . . 101 

6. Ps. xxxvii. 8. Fretfulness, 123 

7. Ps. lxxvii. 2-13. Causes and Cure of Low Spirits, . . 143 

8. 1 Thess. iv. 11. Do your Own Business, .... 177 

9. Prov. iv. 7. The Principal Thing, 195 

10. Jer. iv. 14. Vain Thoughts, 213 

11. 1 Kings xviii. 21. Halting in Religion, . . . . 233 

12. John iii. 36. The Two Truths, 257 

13. John xix. 34. Trustworthiness of the Evangelists, . 281 

14. 1 Cor. vi. 20. The Price of our Redemption, . . 309 

15. Col. i. 19. The Fulness of Christ, 333 

16. Deut. xxxii. 29. The Consideration of Death, . . 369 

17. 1 Cor. xv. 42. The Resurrection of the Body, . . . 391 



The Lord Eeigneth. 



SERMONS 



i, 

THE LORD REIGNETH. 

Ps. 97 : 1. %axts ragnrtlj : Id t\z car% tffysut. 



HOUGH nothing more had been revealed in 
Scripture than the genial truth contained in 
this one passage, it would be the richest 
boon ever conferred on mankind. When 
the sublime sentiment is engraven on the heart, — 
" There is a God, there is a Providence," — we med- 
itate with serene Christian philosophy on the various 
untoward occurrences that are turning up on our 
restless little planet. The human actors are, with all 
their bravery and strut, mere fantoccini or dancing 
puppets, acting their little part on the stage according 
to the will of the great Mechanician, who holds within 
his fingers every one of the strings that give them play 
and movement. Thus, whether revolving the past, 
present, or future, we exult in the persuasion that we 
are under the best of governments, because at its head 
is the best of beings. 

1 




2 



SERMONS. 



I propose to offer a few plain thoughts on the ex- 
tent of the divine dominion and some of its essential 
properties ; not, however, on the whole extent, for 
that would open too large a field ; but that imme- 
diately and specifically named in the text, — " The 
Lord reigneth : let the earth rejoice." To this small, 
outlying province, then, of the divine empire your at- 
tention will be drawn ; first, to the physical earth, 
and secondly to its moral inhabitants. 

I. The physical earth, or what is commonly called 
Nature. We sometimes allow ourselves to be cheated 
out of our belief in great truths by the sophistry of 
high-sounding, though really empty, words. Provi- 
dence, we are sometimes told, if it has any proper 
meaning, is simply the regular operation of certain gen- 
eral laws, which are either eternal or were impressed 
on matter at the creation. These laws are living forces, 
doing their work unbidden and unaided, nor requir- 
ing the interference of any extrinsic agent. Accord- 
ing to this theory, which establishes a true deification 
of nature, a God might have been indispensable when 
finite existence commenced ; but has been super- 
seded by the collegium of inferior potencies to whom 
the working of the great machine is now committed, 
except that, at distant intervals, he may appear for a 
moment to wind it up. Strange, that men of sense 
should be found to sport such unmitigated absurdi- 
ties, as if those living forces, which they speak of with 
such glib assurance, were so many gods and goddesses, 
and not simply abstractions of the understanding, — 
general names applied to classes of facts regularly 
assorted for the advantage of the memory and for 



SERMONS. 



3 



convenient expression ! The efficient causes (the 
real vital energy), that underlie and animate the 
mighty mass of being, are not seen nor comprehended. 
We perceive one event succeeding another in un- 
broken order ; but what in one produces and necessi- 
tates the other, no science will ever explain, unless, 
accepting the teachings of a higher wisdom, she 
attributes it to the immediate efficiency of the great 
First Cause " in whom," as the apostle expresses- it 
beautifully and with philosophical precision, " we 
live and move and have our being.' ' Such seems to 
be the conclusion in actual favor with enlightened 
physicists of the present day. Nature is 

" Owned a name for an effect, whose cause is God. He feeds the secret 
fire; 

By him the mighty process is maintained; who sleeps not, is not weary, 
in whose sight 

Slow circling ages are as transient days, and whose beneficence no 
change exhausts." 

Starting from these reflections, let us survey for a 
moment the fair variety of things around us. What 
order is exhibited ! What admirable proportions and 
mutual adaptation ! It may be compared to a mag- 
nificent tissue or web, formed by innumerable golden 
threads, crossing and interlacing each other with 
such beautiful regularity that everything is in its 
proper place, and all united make up a grand whole, 
which it is impossible to look upon without admira- 
tion. The heavenly bodies roll along their appointed 
path with calm majesty, never in their march jostling 
each other nor deranging their respective movements. 
The earth remains lightly poised in mid-ether, and 
yet stable as if built on indestructible foundations. 



4 



SEEM ON S. 



Every year brings on the seasons in due succession. 
Every day sees the luminous ball above our heads 
rise and sink at the marked-out moment. Nature 
makes no mistake. The insect, bird, quadruped, fish, 
reptile, — all are provided for. All wait upon God, 
that he may give them their meat in due quantity 
and time. 

Look there, at a spectacle more truly admirable 
than that which drew from Moses the exclamation, 
" I will turn aside and see this great sight," — a bush 
burning with fire and not consumed. You see the 
Lord Almighty — who sits upon the circle of the 
heavens, whose arm sustains the universe — feeding 
a little fly ! In a word, the same hand that created 
preserves. There is in the universe no decay, no 
destruction ; what we call destruction being nothing 
more than an old substance passing over into a new 
form. Whatever beauty or use the works of God had 
six thousand years ago they have to-day. The sun 
shines out on our gardens and cornfields as radiantly 
as on the morning when he commenced his circuit. 
The ground possesses the same principle of fecun- 
dity as when it first heard the edict, " Let it bring 
forth grass; the herb bearing seed and the fruit- 
tree yielding fruit after its kind. This is the Lord 
reigning in the physical or material world. . 

Equally intimate is the relation between an all- 
pervading Providence and the affairs of man. The 
same divine hand that controls and directs the proc- 
esses of dead nature regulates every wheel and pulley 
in the complicated mechanism of human society. All 
events, whether men choose to call them the great or 



SERMONS. 



5 



small, are ordered according to the counsel of his will. 
Those astonishing changes in empires, for example, 
which seem to arise from the ambition of princes or 
a fortuitous concurrence of circumstances, are under 
the guidance of Him who mocks the projects of earthly 
wisdom, laughs to scorn the shrewd Ahithophels of 
this world, — blasting their enterprises at the moment 
of apparent success, and at last, when no further 
purpose is to be answered by their continuance on 
the stage, hanging them with their own rope. Nor is 
his inspection limited to the earth's mighty ones. I 
know of nothing more delightful in Holy Scripture 
than the earnestness with which it dwells on the 
condescending goodness of the almighty Parent to 
men, as simple individuals, without regard to adven- 
titious differences. He is the Father of the father- 
less, the stay of him whom no man regardeth, — 
glancing as benignantly on Bartimeus in his blindness, 
and Lazarus in his poverty and sores, as on Ahasue- 
rus, sitting on the throne of his kingdom and reign- 
ing over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces. 

But the doctrine is fanatical, say some. It lays 
down the unphilosophical hypothesis of a constant ar- 
bitrary interference with the regular and beautiful 
course of nature established at the beginning. That 
he is the original Author of that course, and exercises 
a general superintendence over the laws which regu- 
late it, the objectors concede, — at least, the most 
serious and reflective part of them ; but that he per- 
petually thrusts in a violent force upon their legiti- 
mate operations to produce special results, tries too 
severely their powers of belief. But we advocate no 
1* 



6 



SERMONS. 



violent interposition nor miraculous introduction of a 
discord into the established harmony of things. We 
advocate nothing, in short, but what is exemplified 
every moment by our own operations on the objects 
that surround us. We are continually acting upon 
nature by our free volitions ; exercising over it a direc- 
tive and controlling influence, which if less frequent 
would be scarcely credited. Let me illustrate this 
idea in detail, for the benefit of those whom the sup- 
posed difficulty seriously embarrasses ; but which we 
shall show, without much trouble, is no difficulty at 
all. 

When you look abroad, you see everything in 
movement. Action and reaction, union and decom- 
position, growth and decay, — in a word, change, stir, 
elemental war, — seem impressed on all that is most 
stable and permanent. We talk of rest in the 
grave. The animal chemist, however, informs us 
that this is true only in figure, — that the most in- 
tensively active processes with which he is acquainted 
are incessantly going on in that lively little world — 
a coffin. When we undertake to explain this endless 
whirl and motion, we do not usually refer — indeed 
never except in religious discourse — to the primary, 
efficient cause — God — but speak of certain second- 
ary causes which are in constant play ; for example, 
electricity, caloric, gravitation, impulse, chemical 
affinity, and repulsion, — organic life. These are 
nature's drudge laborers, serving her with blind obe- 
dience, never deviating, of their own proper mo- 
tion, a hair-breadth from the track marked out 
for them in the creative plan. Looking at them 



SERMONS. 



7 



alone, and apart from a still higher force, you might 
easily conclude that all things happen by a fatal 
necessity, one occurrence growing out of another by 
an immutable law of causation. But now bring 
upon the scene a new agency (I am not speaking of 
the divine, for this is the point in question), — I say, 
a new agency, entirely different in its manner of work- 
ing, and more exalted by possessing the attributes of 
spirituality, — independence and self-determination; 
introduce, in other words, a mind, — your theory 
begins to topple over, like all ambitious structures 
without a good base and well-placed centre of gravity. 
It made no provision for this high power. Faithful in 
observing the varied phenomena of mere matter, and 
reasoning on them with perfect accuracy, if they had 
formed the whole system of being, it did not bring 
man into its iron mathematics. Look at this book a 
moment, and imagine it, if you please, a stone lying 
on the ground. There it is, bound to the earth by 
the law of gravity, and bound to remain there, as far 
as we can judge ; for no earthly force is in action to 
counteract the tendency to remain precisely on the 
spot which it occupies. But it begins to move, 
— move independently, to all seeming, of every 
known law of physics. It gently rises, as if it had 
received a soul, and stands self-poised in air like 
Mohammed's coffin. A " miracle," we would say, if 
we witnessed it for the first time ; but, familiar with 
the occurrence, we speak of the force of a human 
arm. That arm received its movement from the 
contraction of a piece of flesh called a muscle; and 
that contraction was the effect of an incomprehen- 



8 



SERMONS. 



sible energy comnnmicated through little threads of 
nerves from the brain. And what of the brain ? All 
we know is, that its action was excited by the simple 
volition or will of a being who possessed the power of 
beginning movement, by its own sovereign thought. 
What, indeed, is the whole life of man but a success- 
ful struggle with necessity — an almost complete 
subjugation of the activities of matter to his pur- 
poses, nay, to his whims and humors. The moment 
Adam rose out of the dust a live man, he, in the 
exercise of his free agency, put himself in communi- 
cation with an external world, to operate on it, to 
change it. Standing by a tree loaded with fruit, he 
puts out his hand by a simple movement of his mind, 
and tears from the stem an apple. That apple, on 
the objector's principles, ought not to have been sub- 
jected to such treatment. It should have remained 
on its twig till it had advanced from ripeness to 
decay, then fallen to the ground like the rest of its 
family, and remained there till decomposition ren- 
dered it back to the elements. What a fine history 
has Adam spoiled ! Here we see a little animal, 
scarce six feet high, stepping out and originating a 
new order of things by an interposition as little to be 
expected, before the fact, as any which we attribute to 
the providence of the Deity. It is just the same in 
all cases. His whole life is, as I have said, a series 
of interference. He might be defined (it is surprising 
that no logician ever thought of it) an interfering 
animal. He commands the gold to come from the 
solid rock, where it should have remained imbedded 
till the next grand telluric catastrophe, and it comes. 



SERMONS. 



9 



At his edict the iron leaps from its ore, and forms 
itself into a thousand instruments of art, not one of 
which would have ever existed by the operation of 
mere physical laws. How many millions and billions 
of years would it have taken all the galvanism, the 
electricity, gravitation, etc., in the universe, to 
fabricate this little button on my coat, or this pen- 
knife, had not a 4 strong will, directed by reason and 
intelligence, walked in among these brute forces, and 
put them to account ! 

Thus, man is constantly engaged in stamping on 
the works of God his own image and superscription ; 
mingling his own personality with everything he 
touches. Nothing comes from his plastic hand un- 
changed. He tunnels the mountains, builds cities, 
turns forests into gardens, spreads a network of 
canals and railroads round the globe, by means of 
which he propels himself with the velocity of a bird. 
He shoots through the air, mocking its resistance and 
the power of gravity, almost verifying that sublime 
description of the Deity, " He rode upon a cherub, 
and did fly ; yea, he did fly on the wings of the 
wind." The very lightning he tames, and brings it 
down by a silken string into his bottle. Even his 
daily food is extorted by him from mother earth, not 
without violence ; and some of its most valued articles 
may be called his own creation. The nutritive 
potato, for instance, before it fell into his hands, was 
an acrid and poisonous root, in which a greater 
change has been effected than if one of our savage 
aboriginals were taken from his native forest, and, by 
a forcing process unhappily not yet discovered, made 



10 



SERJIONS. 



to receive the stamp of a high civilization. The 
wheat, from which we make our daily bread, is not a 
natural production, being nowhere found except in 
our companionship. Man is its patentee and invent- 
or ; at an early period he discovered a mean grass 
totally void of alimentary qualities (some think it 
was a species of wild mustard), and, after a long 
struggle, succeeded in raising it, by his active intel- 
ligence and perseverance, to a queenly rank in the 
vegetable kingdom. 

With these plain evidences before us of a human 
Providence and its admirable doings, can we hesitate 
to believe that the same high attribute belongs 
essentially and in an infinitely higher degree to the 
Almighty Creator ? But this, they say, implies that 
terrible thing — a " miracle." Really! Does man, 
in impressing his free activity on matter, work a 
miracle ? Is it an unnatural and bloody violence 
which he exercises ? We do not find anything 
miraculous in the fact, so often recorded in the news- 
papers, that the commander of a noble ship, by his 
energetic skill in managing the powers of nature, 
succeeds in drawing off from a lee-shore in the very 
teeth of tide and tempest, — one of the finest spec- 
tacles the eye can feast on ; — but the suggestion 
makes some people furiously nervous that the Author 
of the universe, in fit emergencies, — answering, let us 
suppose, the mournful cry ascending from a thousand 
of his perishing creatures, or from some other induce- 
ment worthy of moving his benevolent heart, — may 
exercise a similar control. Let us take the comfort 
of our doctrine without the least misgiving. Indeed, 



SER MONS. 



11 



we cannot do without it. The inborn sense of de- 
pendence, — that instinct by which, in the hour of 
peril and helplessness, we look upward to the heavens, 
— proves how deeply the belief is laid in our spirit- 
ual natures. Yes ; the Divine Parent is in constant 
communication with the works of his hands. Miser- 
able would be the state of things if there was the 
faintest shadow of reason to suspect that we have 
dropped down into a fatherless world. " What 
would it concern me," says a venerable heathen sage 
and Roman emperor, " to live in a world without 
God and without a Providence ? Better, if things 
were so, to be a dog than a man ! " 

II. We proceed to consider some of the essential 
properties of the divine administration, as delineated 
in Holy Scripture, and illustrated by apt examples. 

Their sovereignty, or independence of all impelling 
causes, except the ruler's own good pleasure, within 
the limits, however, always of moral rectitude, for 
though he may surprise us by his procedures, he 
can never deny himself. This appears in such things 
as the following : in the choice of individuals to 
stations of eminence and usefulness ; in working with 
or without means ; and in overruling evil for the 
production of good. Much of it appears in the selec- 
tion of persons to particular stations and services. 
Why, asks the young student of his Bible, was a 
Mesopotamian herdsman chosen to be the father of 
the faithful, the recipient of the promise ? Why Aaron, 
the idolater and calf-maker, fixed in the high-priest- 
hood to the exclusion of Moses, his more deserving 
brother ? The stripling David anointed to sway the 



12 



SERMONS. 



sceptre rather than a veteran of distinguished repu- 
tation, inured to the labors of the camp ? Twelve 
poor fishermen, called from their nets to apostolic 
responsibilities, over members of the Sanhedrim, 
rulers of the synagogue, and rich Josephs of Arima- 
thea ? TTe should learn, from such examples, a lesson 
of contented humility, and not to be our own ap- 
praisers as to what niche of honor or usefulness we 
should fill in society. According to our great Chris- 
tian poet, there is a class of angels before the throne 
who have no active services to perform, but are not 
on this account without their worth and dignity. 
" These stand and ivait" he says, gracefully acqui- 
escing in their inaction ; contented, since God will 
have it so, that others have the honor of bearing the 
heat and burden of the day. TVe should all feel that 
our Master can do perfectly well without us, and that 
we are possibly among those whose best obedience, 
under existing circumstances, is just to sit still, or be 
hewers of wood and drawers of water. 

We may notice, also, that as he qualifies men for cer- 
tain services, so he raises them up at the proper season, 
neither too early nor too late. It is a favorite specu- 
lation of the political thinker, that when a community 
has become ripe for important changes in their condi- 
tion, the person or persons to accomplish it are always 
at hand ; being produced, as it were, by spontaneous 
generation. Hence their maxim, " With the time 
comes the man.^ We have not so read history. It 
tells us that nations have long been pressed down for 
a succession of ages, though perfectly ripe for deliv- 
erance, because there was no deliverer ; and also, that 



SERMONS. 



13 



when actually found, he seemed to be the child of an 
extraordinary and almost miraculous concurrence of 
circumstances. When Christianity was established 
in the Koman empire, in the third century, an em- 
peror accomplished it who had been converted from 
heathenism in the most sudden and surprising man- 
ner. When Luther arose, he would soon have been 
quenched out but for a great temporal prince, — the 
Elector of Saxony, — who, by a singular leading of 
Providence, was induced to give his powerful pro- 
tection. The revolution in England, which estab- 
lished her religious and civil freedom, was accom- 
plished through the Dutch William of Nassau, who, 
having married into the exiled family, stepped, 
against all human expectation, into the vacant 
throne. Or, coming home to ourselves, was such a 
man as George Washington the product of sponta- 
neous generation ? Let us amend the maxim by the 
addition of a single word, and, instead of saying 
" With the time comes the man" let us affirm the high 
and glorious truth, " With God's time comes the man 
of God to do his work in the earth." 

Again ; God often exhibits sovereignty by the un- 
likely ways and means through which he brings about 
important events. The daughter of Pharaoh, a vola- 
tile girl, is filled, by a strange influence on her mind, 
with a compassionate love to the future legislator of 
Israel, though a detested Hebrew, and brings him up 
as her own son. The sling and stone of a young 
shepherd-boy prevail over the huge bulk and spear, 
like a weaver's beam, of Goliath. Thus, by the inade- 
quacy of the means, — so out of all proportion to the 

2 



14 



SER M N 8. 



end proposed, that reason, unassisted by faith, is 
shocked at the incongruity, — God lets us see that the 
efficacy is of himself alone, and that no seeming impos- 
sibilities should stagger the confidence of his people. 
Sovereignty also appears in restraining the purposes of 
the wicked, and changing their counsels. Laban pur- 
sued Jacpb with intents of mischief, probably murder. 
But a mighty yet gentle finger so touched certain 
springs in the hard man's bosom that, when they meet, 
the storm has become a calm, and their parting is in 
peace. It is noted by the Rabbis, as a remarkable fact 
in Old-Testament history, that the implacable Philis- 
tines never once attacked Judea in those seasons of 
the year when all the males were worshipping at Shi- 
loh, and the borders of the country left without 
defenders. At an important crisis in the affairs of the 
church it was deemed expedient to engage the ser- 
vices of a young Pharisee, distinguished by his bitter 
opposition to the cause, — Saul of Tarsus. Instantly 
the furious persecutor is transformed into a disciple 
such as the world never saw. I am confining myself 
to Bible illustrations, which every child in a Christian 
audience may be presumed to know, aware, at the 
same time, that facts of a miraculous nature may 
be thought by some not exactly appropriate to a gen- 
eral argument for Divine Providence. 

But consider this matter right. The miracle, in a 
transaction of this kind, is merely an attendant cir- 
cumstance, not its principle. It is the garniture and 
vestment, or, we may say, the carcass of God's sublime 
idea, which he sends out thus apparelled in special 
conjunctures, that men may see it whose minds are 



SERMONS. 



15 



not yet trained, for spiritual vision, — not the idea it- 
self, — as the rolling thunder does not produce the 
magnificent effects, often witnessed, which set us all 
agape, but only give the electric fluid voice ; in other 
words, is its sign and accompaniment, which might be 
conceived as entirely absent while the true power is 
in concentrated action. Now, the Supreme Disposer 
moves in a more silent way his wonders to perform. 
There is the electric energy without the thunder. Every 
recorded miracle, therefore, is truly ours, and for us, 
- — not to gaze at with stupid wonderment, but to ex- 
tract its rich kernel of meaning. Only let us draw 
aside the outward drapery, and get behind the veil, 
and at once we find ourselves in the Holy of Holies, 
not as " strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens 
of the saints and the household of God," contem- 
plating the same grand truths that have been the life 
and soul of piety in every age since the world began. 

A second property of the divine administration is its 
rectitude. Nothing, indeed, seems more opposite to 
this, in a mere glancing view, than the general aspect 
of human society. Wickedness is every where rampant. 
Piety for the most part lies neglected in dark corners, 
while the bad are crowned with wealth, influence, and 
applause. But, after all, what matters it that Heaven 
has bestowed the largest and juiciest slices of this 
world to those who abuse the gift ? These juicy slices 
are their all ; a poor portion, at best, but most beg- 
garly when we consider how soon it takes wings, 
and flies away like an eagle toward heaven. The 
good man's afflictions, in the language of the apostle, 
" endure only a moment, and work out a far more 



16 



SERMONS. 



exceeding and eternal weight of glory." He is put 
in the furnace to burn out his dross, and make him 
a vessel fit for holy temple use. Call to mind that 
the most precious ornaments of the old sanctuary 
were made of beaten gold. To be brought to proper 
fineness, it must be beaten, and well beaten, — and 
thus, " whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and 
scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." 

Universal experience shows that prosperity is not 
the field where virtue flourishes. The soil is too 
rich. A luxuriance of weeds chokes the tender 
plants, and makes them unfruitful. When Jeshuran 
waxed fat, he kicked. Adam's defection took place 
in Paradise. Noah's generous vine, though a horti- 
cultural success, proved a fearful snare to the old 
patriarch. But we never hear of any of the old 
heroes of the faith being permanently the worse for 
their trials. Was Israel forgotten in Egypt and 
Babylon, Jeremiah in the dungeon, Job when he 
sat down in the ashes, or Daniel among the lions ? 
No ! A hand unseen sustained them, and, when their 
smitings were sorest, their helps were nearest. Here 
is the solution of the great problem of suffering 
virtue, which has engaged so many minds in vain 
attempts to unriddle it ; vain, I say, and utterly 
futile, " darkening counsel with words without knowl- 
edge," because they brought to the solution no faith in 
God. 

IH. The dispensations of Providence are all sub- 
sidiary to the mediatorial kingdom of Christ. This 
opens a bright scene to observant piety. The con- 
fusion of tongues at Babel produced the peopling of 



SEEM ON 8. 



17 



those regions which have since been brought to the 
fellowship of the gospel. The calling of Abraham 
from Ur of the Chaldees was the origin of that na- 
tion through whom the Saviour was to be manifested. 
The bringing this people from Egypt to Canaan, 
preserving them distinct amidst their numerous dis- 
persions, so that they never lost their national life ; 
at length causing the sceptre of Judah to depart, and 
erecting the Roman standard on Mount Zion, — all 
this series ol events, disturbing no man's free agency, 
each happening in the most natural and apparently 
spontaneous manner, — for this is a beautiful feat- 
ure of the divine government, that it for the most 
part works with the human will and not against it, — 
was calculated, with a wisdom which has extorted ad- 
miration of mere philosophers and secular historians, 
to bring upon the stage, with due impressiveness, 
Messiah, the Desire of the nations. 

Now, I say that from these past developments we 
may draw a pleasant augury for the future. To an 
observant mind, the evidence that our moral earth, 
amid all its heavings and perturbations, is decidedly 
advancing, are unmistakable. The movement may 
be slow and tantalizing, but it perceptibly moves ; and 
thoughtful spirits note with curious interest that 
every year increases its velocity. Men who think 
are beginning to see that there is something more 
in history than an assemblage of dead facts, — 
that there is a plan, a thought-out scheme of things, 
underlying the surface of events, the tendency of 
which is to improvement, progress, the extirpation of 
old errors and forms of wrong, the reign of higher 

2* 



18 



SERMONS. 



maxims, and the development of powers, which, in 
their full unfolding, will carry up our nature to a 
point at which the glowing words of the Psalmist will 
be more than verified : " Thou madest him but little 
lower than the angels." They may be slow to ac- 
knowledge that this means the coming reign of 
Christ. But we understand the matter, we children 
of the booh. The oracle speaks to us in no ambiguous 
voice : "I have sworn by myself, and the word shall 
not return, that to me every knee shall bow, every 
tongue shall swear." 

" Jesus shall reign where'er the sun 
Doth his successive journeys run; " 

and the grand te Deum shall be taken up by uni- 
versal redeemed humanity, that eighteen centuries 
ago was commenced by a celestial choir on the plains 
of Bethlehem, " Glory to God in the highest, peace 
on earth, and good will towards men." 

Those very events in the church, which seem most 
disastrous, are in reality ministering angels, robed in 
crape, if the phrase be allowed ; but not the less 
doing angel service ; leaving, wherever they touch, 
like the ark in the house of Obed Edom, a blessing 
behind them. In early times the truth became so 
manifest as to become a proverb, that " the blood of 
the martyrs is the seed of the church," and the terri- 
ble persecutions of heathen tyrants only gave impetus 
to that spiritual commonwealth, which, like the stone 
cut out of the mountain without hands, is destined to 
break in pieces all other kingdoms. So, from the 
bosom of a corrupt hierarchy, which, only a few years 



SERMONS. 



19 



previous, had achieved a seemingly complete triumph 
over liberty of thought and a free gospel, sprang the 
glorious Reformation. Indeed, it would appear to be 
a ground truth and a general law, that everything 
fair and good in the earth is engendered, not from an 
antecedent fair and good, but from a turbid chaos. 
The temporary declensions and backslidings of Chris- 
tians, for instance, excite to greater humility and 
vigilance their fellow-disciples, and themselves at a 
subsequent period. The final apostasy of mere nom- 
inal church-members separates the chaff from the 
wheat, and thus operates in a quiet, but most effect- 
ual way as a moral purifier. Even the death of em- 
inent saints, like the bones of Elisha, carries a res- 
urrection with it. It awakens survivors to greater 
activity and vigor, just as the fall of a gallant soldier 
induces those who had been lagging to take his 
place in the " imminent deadly breach." " The Lord 
reigns, let the earth rejoice." 

In conclusion, let us make a due improvement 
of this pleasing subject. Is a divine throne in 
the midst of us ? Then give it your faith and 
loyalty ; be satisfied with the station assigned to 
you ; believe that you are in the right place, on 
the very spot which unerring wisdom intended 
you to occupy for working out the sacred prob- 
lem of life and destiny ; abound more and more 
in the duties which become dependent creatures, — in 
thanksgiving, obedience, meek submission, and ar- 
dent devotion ; so that, at the close of life, you will 
be able to adopt the language of the venerable Scot- 
tish elder in his last sickness ; who, to the question 



20 



SEEM OXS. 



of a friend engaged in wiping the death-damp from 
his brow, replied : "I have not a single anxiety ; 
the great Being has been always kind to me ; what- 
ever he has done to me was good and for my good ; 
and why shonld I be afraid? I am alike happy 
that I have lived, and happy that I am going to die" 

Further, while trusting him for yourselves, look 
hopefully to the future in relation to mankind at 
large. There is a good time coming to the race ; do 
not doubt it. You are sometimes dejected at the 
thought of liying in a world so full of misery, sin, 
and sorrow ; never forget, however, that it is a world 
full of God. All shall turn out right at last, though 
at present the threads are so tangled up that a vigor- 
ous faith is needed to accept the possibility of a 
future unravelment. 

Lastly, we have noticed that there is a kingdom of 
grace on the earth, as well as a kingdom of prov- 
idence. Then endeavor, above all things, to know 
whether you are real subjects of this spiritual empire. 
Are you going up through the wilderness, leaning on 
the Almighty arm of Him who died for you, whose 
name and memorial is King of kings and Lord of 
lords ? Unless he dwell in your hearts by his grace 
and spirit, it is impossible to take any solid comfort 
in the thought of a heavenly Providence, or to say 
from the depths of a sincere and earnest soul, "The 
Lord reigneth; let the earth be glad." "Out of 
Christ," we are compelled to remind you, he "is a 
consuming fire." 



The Source op Moral Strength. 



II. 



THE SOURCE OF MORAL STRENGTH. 



Daniel 1 1 : ^2. %\z people tljat 00 knofo fym (Sob s^all 0£ s * r0 



LITTLE more than a century ago an in- 
genious and learned writer excited no little 
ferment in the speculative world by proposing 
for grave consideration the question whether 
a community of atheists could exist. With his usual 
love of singularity, he held the affirmative, and wrote 
an elaborate work in its defence and elucidation. 
Not content with asserting that men might exist in 
a social state and perform all the duties of good citi- 
zens without any recognition of a Supreme Ruler 
and Judge, he declared his opinion that a community 
so organized possessed many considerable advantages, 
or at least was far preferable to a union of super- 
stitious devotees, who, while they acknowledged the 
existence of a God, entertained false and mean con- 
ceptions of his character. It would be foolish to 
deny that this part of his argument is exceedingly 
plausible. Between the two extremes of rank super- 
stition and pure, unadulterated scepticism, there is 
probably little to choose. If from the negation of all 
belief, which characterizes the latter, no pleasant or 
refreshing fruits may be expected, what better things 
can be hoped from positive error concerning the na- 



24 



SUMMONS. 



ture and will of the great Parent of the Universe. 
Is a vacant throne worse than a throne filled by a 
tyrant ? As soon let us acknowledge that there is no 
God as call up before onr imaginations a ghastly 
phantom, that delights in blood ; a childish phantom, 
that takes pleasure in idle ceremonies ; or a monster, 
who commands us, on pain of his everlasting maledic- 
tion, to contradict the plainest dictates of^tar under- 
standing, and belie the purest sentiments of the heart. 
On this topic, those who institute comparisons between 
atheism and corrupted theism, with a favorable lean- 
ing to the former, expatiate eloquently and amply. 
Superstition, say they, enervates the soul. Attacking 
us on the side of our conscious weakness, and awaken- 
ing fear rather than stimulating hope, it paints the 
object which it proposes to our worship in the most 
gloomy colors. A God. whose holiness consists in pro- 
hibiting the gratification of inclinations he has himself 
implanted : whose glory is promoted by the unhappi- 
ness of his creatures : who watches over them only to 
mark with anger the slightest excess or omission ; 
whose justice is inexorable, or only to be appeased by 
painful and expensive sacrifices : and on whom his 
worshippers can place so little dependence that after 
all their efforts they may fail in procuring his favor, 
and securing themselves against the unknown evils of 
futurity : — such is the God who has too often been 
seated on the throne of the universe, and to whom a 
large proportion of mankind have in every age ren- 
dered trembling homage. Is it wonderful that, nur- 
tured from earliest infancy in such conceptions of 
the great Father of all. they should grow up into 



SERMONS. 



25 



poor, mean-hearted slaves, scarcely daring to walk 
upright on earth, and shivering at every unusual oc- 
currence in nature as an omen of approaching ven- 
geance ? Such is the religion of too many even in 
Christian lands ; a religion full of discomfort and 
dark forebodings, which, by its harrowing representa- 
tions, changes the fair face of nature into deformity, 
casts poison into all the fountains of happiness, and 
makes cowards of the bravest hearts. Its wretched 
votary feels himself unfit to live, and yet more unfit 
to die. 

But while we cheerfully concede to the enemies of 
superstition that in this statement, which we have 
put into their mouths, there is some truth, and that 
there are forms of that baneful evil almost as intol- 
erable as the want of all religious principle, we would 
remind them that there is a true knowledge of God, 
which is not difficult of attainment, and the opera- 
tion of which is as blessed as that of the other is 
pernicious and fatal. Happy is the community in 
which it nourishes and yields its appropriate fruits. 
Thrice happy the individual who feels its sacred in- 
fluences. It exalts while it purifies the soul, and 
breathes a divine vigor into all its faculties. He 
who has come to the enjoyment of this heavenly 
light is like a benighted traveller, who, after toiling 
many weary hours through tangled forest and deep 
morass, the yell of some ferocious beast every mo- 
ment striking upon his ear, and imagination con- 
juring up a thousand frightful spectres, at length 
sees the glorious orb of day rising, as if out of com- 
passion upon his misery and for the express purpose of 

3 



26 



SERM ONS. 



guiding him to a path of safety. He stands erect, 
looks around him fearlessly, and walks on with firm 
and elastic step, astonished at the change he has ex- 
perienced. This is the truth to the consideration of 
which you are invited by my text. " The people 
that do know their God shall be strong." They shall 
be full of vigor and courage. They shall exhibit, 
under all circumstances, a force of character, which, 
though exerted in a very different direction from 
what the world calls such, is infinitely above it in 
respect both to the principles from whence they re- 
spectively spring and the effects they produce. 

Before, however, entering on details, it will be 
proper to determine the nature of this knowledge 
spoken of in our text, it being too evident that there 
is a knowledge of G-od which exercises no such in- 
vigorating influence on the human character. 

That it must be true knowledge, involving accurate 
conceptions of the attributes, will, and government 
of the Almighty, we sufficiently intimated in our in- 
troductory remarks. It is not required that the 
ideas we have of him be adequate, or fully answera- 
ble to his mysterious nature. " Who by searching 
can find him out ? Who can know the Almighty to 
perfection ?" His pavilion is thick darkness, and the 
loftiest genius who attempts to rise above a few 
simple notions of unbounded power, unbending holi- 
ness, and goodness beyond compare, soon finds that 
he has no wings for such an adventurous flight. 
But our apprehensions, so far as they go, may be 
perfectly conformable to the Archetype ; and in the 
gospel he has given such clear notices of himself as 



SERMONS. 



27 



leave every one who entertains ideas positively false, 
without excuse. He is there revealed as our Crea- 
tor, our Legislator, and our Judge ; but he is more. 
Taking compassion on our sin and wretchedness, he 
sent his only begotten Son into the world to redeem 
us from death, and restore us to a place among his 
sons. He receives the believing penitent as a parent 
his returning prodigal child, enters into covenant 
with him, is ever present to support him, guides, sanc- 
tifies, and in due time receives him into his heavenly 
kingdom. These truths, with others of a kindred 
nature, distinctly apprehended and firmly believed, 
take possession of the whole man, and become so 
incorporated with his essential principles of feeling 
and action that they cannot be separated. He views 
them in a light very different from that in which 
they present themselves to the mere speculative un- 
derstanding. They are not barren abstractions, they 
are not cold deductions of reason which chill while 
they enlighten, but warm, radiant, living realities, 
which seem to exist not so much without as within 
him, and to be parts of his own breathing self. To 
doubt the existence of a supreme and everywhere- 
present Spirit, who is before, and behind him, who 
compasseth his lying down and rising up ; to doubt 
his perfect justice, his ineffable purity, his boundless 
love ; to doubt whether in Jesus Christ he hath rec- 
onciled sinners to himself, and is preparing for all 
who accept the offered grace, mansions in the skies, — 
is to him little more intelligible than to doubt of his 
own existence. Hence that beautiful and most sig- 
nificant term by which this perception is often ex- 



28 



SERMONS. 



pressed in the sacred Scriptures. The saints are 
said to " see God." The ideas they have of his pres- 
ence, power, goodness, and the various solemn and 
tender relations he sustains to them, are so lively 
and beyond description impressive, that they may be 
almost characterized as images of sense. 

And these are not occasional feelings, to which 
they have been wrought up by a concurrence of ex- 
traordinary circumstances. I make this remark to 
guard against a dangerous error into which many 
have fallen, the general frame of whose mind is very 
different from that described, in consequence of dis- 
covering that at certain periods of their lives, and in 
certain situations, they felt emotions not dissimilar. 
The idea of God is in itself so grand and elevating a 
thought, so calculated to rouse and absorb all the 
faculties of the soul, that the most carnal mind, when 
suitably prepared by a train of incidents, is con- 
strained to feel and acknowledge its influence. As 
the giddy and tasteless traveller, who feels no sym- 
pathy with the sublime and beautiful objects in nature, 
but turns away from them with disgust, sometimes 
stumbles on scenes of surpassing grandeur and love- 
liness when in a state of mind favorable to receive 
an impression, and is astonished at discovering what 
a fountain of sensibility has been locked up in his 
bosom, — so the most thoughtless man of the world, 
who can pass whole weeks without one serious re- 
flection, whose days are spent in the turmoil of busi- 
ness, and nights in revelling, wonders sometimes to 
find himself led by a sort of destiny, which he cannot 
resist, directly into the presence of Ms Maker. The 



SEEM ONS. 



29 



heaven-born mind, as if conscious of the vile degra- 
dation to which she has been reduced, and determined 
for once to assert her right, climbs up to her native 
quarry, and claims a brief communion with the 
Parent from whom she had so long been separated. 
Yes, even the besotted sensualist is forced sometimes 
to exclaim, " There is a God ; how great, how glo- 
rious is God ! " He feels himself at the foot of his 
throne ; the world, with all its vain illusions, disap- 
pears, and he surrenders himself to a train of the 
most profound and affecting contemplations. These, 
it is true, are rare occurrences in his life ; and their 
infrequency constitutes a broad and strongly marked, 
though by no means the only, distinction between his 
case and that of the truly religious man. The devo- 
tion of the latter is no panic nor sudden paroxysm ; 
but an inwrought habit of thinking, feeling, and act- 
ing, in the view of that great Being whose transcend- 
ent purity fills him with adoring awe, and whose 
numberless acts of goodness he reciprocates with 
unceasing praise. 

I observe, further, that, in this lively apprehension 
of God in his various attributes and relations, there 
is always a specific personal appropriation of him. 
The truly pious man is not satisfied with any attain- 
ment short of the ability to say " He is my God, and 
will be my guide even unto death." He has taken 
a close survey of his miseries and needs, and the feel- 
ing of helplessness is too intense to be allayed by 
vague considerations of the divine all-sufficiency. As 
the affectionate child regards his parent not in the 
light of a parent in general, or of the family col- 
3* 



30 



SEEM ON S. 



lectively , but as his parent ; so the devout soul claims 
for himself all that God is, and all that is in God, 
with the same individuality of application that would 
be exercised were there no other being in the uni- 
verse sustaining the same relation to him. If any 
are disposed to tax a poor, sinful worm with too 
much boldness and familiarity in thus contemplating 
and approaching his Maker, I reply that no undue 
boldness is evinced in claiming a privilege which is 
given him by covenant and charter. It is a bold- 
ness which, in a greater or less degree, all the faith- 
ful have. Witness such language as this, which we 
would often find on their lips if admitted to their 
secret privacies : 44 My Father, thou art the guide of 
my youth. Because thou hast been my help, there- 
fore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. The 
Lord is the portion of my cup. Therefore my heart 
is glad and my glory rejoiceth ; my flesh also shall rest 
in hope. Thou art my hope, Lord God. Blessed 
be the Lord, my strength, my goodness and my for- 
tress, my high tower and my deliverer, my shield 
and he hi whom I trust." 

The people that thus know their God shall be 
strong. Such a hearty recognition of the divine ex- 
istence and perfections, with the holy love, fear, and 
confidence which are its appropriate fruits, is the 
true source of moral courage, and is particularly 
efficacious in those conjunctures which prove the 
weakness of all other supports. 

Consider, in the first place, the firmness which it 
inspires under the calamities of life. None of us 
need be reminded that these occur with sufficient 



SEEM ONS. 



31 



frequency to justify a very diligent inquiry into the 
best methods of bracing ourselves against their violent 
assault ; and it would be unfair to deny that many, 
unfurnished with principles drawn from a pious re- 
liance on God, exhibit on such occasions a considera- 
ble degree of fortitude and self-command. There 
are to be found in the world men who, to judge from 
their bold front and lofty carriage under the most 
terrible misfortunes, almost justify the arrogant blas- 
phemy of a sect of philosophers, that " the gods 
themselves have no power over a resolute spirit." 
Like certain sea-birds described by naturalists, they 
show the greatest alacrity in the greatest storm. 
The severest losses, as of wife, children, friends, 
property, character, political standing, in quick suc- 
cession, seem to produce as little impression as a 
shower of stones from the hands of children would 
make on the back of a rhinoceros. They fall only to 
rise with fresh energy, and death may kill but cannot 
conquer them. We have all seen, I presume, these 
men of iron in the walks of life, and have asked the 
cause of their astonishing peculiarity of character. 
All that can be said, perhaps, in answer is, that Na- 
ture delights in varieties, and that, between such 
beings and men in general, there are original and 
inexplicable differences of mental constitution. The 
great majority of men are formed in a different 
mould. They are sensible that affliction has power 
over them ; they tremble at its approach ; and, when 
it touches them, they bleed at every pore. What 
sinking of the heart is felt at losing an only child ! 
How does the strong man, who led a host to the 



32 



SERMONS. 



cannon's mouth, writhe under the unutterable pang 
of seeing the companion of his youth and the solace 
of his declining years close for the last time those 
eyes which had so often beamed on him with affec- 
tion, and dispelled the gathering darkness from his 
brow ! How tenderly do we sympathize with one 
another on such occasions ! We feel that consolation 
is needed, but hardly venture near to offer it ; for a 
something tells us that, were the case our own, we 
should be beyond the reach of human sympathy. 

There are certain reflections, indeed, which men 
of the world affect to make on the calamities of life, 
which they imagine would not be without their use, 
if duly considered by the sufferer. They appeal to 
his pride, insinuating that extreme sorrow is a weak- 
ness of which a man should be ashamed. They tell 
him that misfortunes are the common lot of humanity, 
and that complaining, instead of bringing a cure, only 
renders them more intolerable. They add that evils 
are great in the view of the mind only because they 
are very near. All, therefore, he is called to do, is 
to look forward a few weeks or months, and imagine 
that the interval is already past. Yain words, which 
have never stilled a throb nor dried a tear ! " Sorrow 
is a weakness ; therefore dismiss it." Ay ; but will 
Sorrow go ? Is Sorrow conjured by such an easy 
spell ? Let those who have made the experiment an- 
swer the question, and tell us whether they have 
found her so accommodating a guest. Pride and a 
sense of shame, I acknowledge, may operate power- 
fully on many as inducements to conceal the impres- 
sion made by grief. By a desperate effort, like that 



SERMONS. 



33 



of some malefactors who have preserved their natural 
expression when tortured on the rack, they may 
establish a reputation for heroic firmness and equa- 
nimity. But the disease rages within, and, driven 
from the extremities, attacks with greater violence 
the heart. " Misfortune," continue our philosophers, 
" is the common lot of man." Well, so it is ; but 
what consolation does it give the sufferer that he has 
companions in misery ? Allowing their affliction to 
equal his, which, however, in the paroxysm of his 
grief, he will not be ready to admit, — felt sorrow 
being always greater than sorrow only imagined, — 
what profits him this equality ? It does not diminish 
his loss, does not repair it, but leaves him where it 
found him, blasted and broken-hearted. " Afflictions 
are necessary and unavoidable." "Ah," says the 
sufferer, " I know it, and for that very reason I 
mourn. I feel myself the victim of a terrible Des- 
tiny, who hurries me along, I know not where, and 
mocks my impotent endeavors to escape ; who hears 
no prayers, and feels no pity." Equally futile is the 
advice that we, by an effort of the imagination, con- 
ceive ourselves at a distance from the affliction, and 
attempt to look at it as we probably shall do after the 
lapse of this day twelve-month, for example. As well 
may we be told that we are not ourselves, but some 
other person. We have no such power over our im- 
agination. Time has, indeed, a wonderful efficacy in 
assuaging grief ; and this is a happy constitution for 
which we cannot be sufficiently thankful, as without 
it the most would be doomed to pass their lives in 
blank despair. But the abstract knowledge of this 



34 



SERMONS. 



psychological truth allays not the present anguish. 
The time must actually elapse. Day must succeed to 
day, and month to month, while the healing process 
is going slowly on ; and, if a cure be at last obtained, 
the interval is as long to him who anticipated such 
an issue at the commencement, as to him who in his 
ignorance supposed that he never would be com- 
forted. 

There is another prescription warmly recommended 
by the worldly philosopher. Let the sufferer, after 
the first paroxysm of grief, plunge into the noisy 
whirl of business or amusement : 

" Quit the cypress groves, 
Nor to the riv'let's lowly moanings tune 
Your sad complaint. Go seek the cheerful haunts 
Of men, and mingle with the bustling crowd." 

I am far from denying all virtue to this applauded 
nostrum. If the rude shock has left sufficient energy 
to make the experiment (and outward circumstances 
are not unfavorable), the vigorous prosecution of 
worldly business will certainly blunt the sharp point 
of affliction, and the melancholy images will gradu- 
ally fade from the mind. But its radical defect is, 
that it promises only a distant cure. Instead of ad- 
ministering present relief, it envenoms the wound by 
compelling the sufferer to assume an air of calmness 
and unconcern, and to turn away his thoughts from 
the subject which engrosses his whole soul. You 
have all felt, in seasons of calamity, the painful 
violence which it cost you to resume the ordinary 
occupations of life, and have almost imagined that 
you could still be happy were you left alone with 



SERMONS. 



35 



your own sad thoughts. Whatever, then, he the 
ultimate effects of this expedient, it brings too tardy 
aid to merit the high encomiums that have been 
passed upon it. What is more, its operation is 
entirely mechanical, infusing no principles of fortitude 
in the soul, and teaching not to meet our enemy, but 
to fly from him. The man, who seeks relief from 
corroding reflections in the din of secular employ- 
ment, plainly shows a want of internal supports, and 
that he is a coward in his heart. 

But they that know their God shall be strong. 
They have obtained views and sentiments which the 
men of this generation, though they cannot fully 
appreciate them, must acknowledge to be blessed in 
their effects. How contemptible, beyond expression, 
appear such maxims as those we have been consider- 
ing, to him who has learned in the school of Christ 
lessons like these : " There is a glorious Being at the 
head of the universe, infinite in wisdom and power, 
without whom not a hair shall fall to the ground. 
This Being is my God, whose omnipotence is en- 
gaged to protect, whose wisdom is engaged to guide 
me ; and though he often walks in a mysterious way, 
not suffering his footsteps to be known, yet on his 
great and precious promises I lean with triumphant 
confidence. The afflictions of life are necessary expres- 
sions of his displeasure with my sins, but are infinitely 
less than my sins deserve. The present life is only pre- 
paratory to another, and these afflictions are an impor- 
tant part of my education. Their effect shall be cer- 
tainly beneficial, and the recollection of them shall 
sweeten the bliss of heaven through eternity." Now I 



36 



SERMOXS. 



do not say that principles and feelings like these must 
give the man on whom they exercise their influence an 
immense superiority over all others in trying vicissi- 
tudes. I affirm, they elevate him above all degrees 
of comparison, and make him a being of another 
order. Misfortune cannot affect him, for the very 
word is stricken from his vocabulary. All is ordered, 
all is right, all is beautiful and good. Pain, disease, 
loss of friends, disappointments in business, shame 
and ignominy, are blessings not in disguise, but each 
distinctly labelled " The Medicine of a Father" To 
say that in a state of suffering the pious soul enjoys 
more of the peaceful calm of godliness than in more 
prosperous circumstances, may seem foolish exaggera- 
tion. But we seriously say it ; and without recurring 
to the precious idea that G-od will, at such a season, 
communicate to his child unusual supplies of grace, 
we think the fact can be explained on natural prin- 
ciples. Affliction puts the pious soul on her re- 
sources. Knowing that her strength lies in the 
truths of the holy word, she betakes to them with an 
earnestness suited to the emergency ; drinks large 
draughts from the refreshing fountain, and makes a 
full meal on the heavenly bread. She is soon and 
amply rewarded. _ Truths which before appeared 
little interesting, or perhaps were scarcely perceived, 
now stand out with inexpressible freshness and beauty. 
New views of God and his holy government, Christ 
and his great salvation, the Holy Spirit and his com- 
forting relations, crowd upon him ; possessing, how- 
ever, a better charm than novelty, for they bear the 
stamp of that unerring word in which he trusteth. 



SERMONS. 



37 



Should we be surprised, then, to find the Christian so 
often declaring, not in tones of Pharisaic self-applause, 
but with the deepest humility and gratitude to God, 
that he is " exceedingly joyful in all his tribulations" ? 
Infidels, and those of an infidel spirit, affect to deny 
this fact, or at least to doubt whether, if the bearing 
of Christians in trouble were closely inspected, it 
would be found essentially different from that ot 
others ; and thus all our preaching goes for mere 
declamation. Now I am at perfect issue with them 
on this point, and as it is a question of fact it may be 
easily brought to the test. I aver that there are in 
every village and cluster of cottages in our land some 
whose conduct justifies all that has been said ; and if 
the persons with whom I argue have not found, it is 
because they have not sought, them. How can men 
who habitually turn away from scenes of sorrow, 
whom nothing but the last necessity compels to re- 
main five minutes together in a sick-room of the 
dying, who can scarcely bear to look in the face of an 
unfortunate, lest they catch his gloom and melan- 
choly, — how can such judge of the invigorating efficacy 
of religion ? But even could they screw up their 
courage to visit the house of affliction, they might be 
led into erroneous judgment by false appearances. 
The pious are not fond of rehearsing their exercises 
on the house-top. Though they take pleasure in 
communicating with those who possess a kindred 
spirit, they abhor display before the world, and usually 
receive their careless friends in silence, choosing 
rather to say nothing than make an exhibition, or 
talk in a dialect which they do not understand. But 

4 



38 



SEB3I0NS. 



though the lips move not, the heart speaketh, and 
their joys are not the less pure because no stranger 
intermeddleth with them. 

EL Let us now view this divine knowledge as in- 
spiring with moral vigor in the discharge of duty. I 
believe it scarcely admits of dispute that not only is 
there an undue proportion of vice paid disorder every- 
where prevalent, but that human virtue, unaccom- 
panied with religion, is a poor sickly plant under the 
most favorable cultivation. The great majority of 
men seem to live without any fixed purpose in view. 
Placed here they know not why, and going they 
know not where, their only concern is to spend the 
few years they are destined to continue in the world 
as free from molestation as they can. To possess a 
certain measure of what they call the good things of 
life, to enjoy intercourse with a few friends, to raise 
four or five children, and finally to have the satisfac- 
tion of dying in a well-furnished room in the midst 
of their family, seems to bound their wishes and 
their hopes. On this weak and narrow foundation is 
built the whole system of their acknowledged duty. 
Obey the laws of your country ; if necessary, fight in 
its defence ; abstain from injuring others, that they 
may abstain from injuring you ; and occasionally 
render them assistance, that you may in turn receive 
it, is a complete answer to every question that can 
arise concerning conduct. Exceptions to this remark 
are more apparent than real. How few of those 
splendid exhibitions of magnanimity, love of right, 
and indignation at oppression, which grace the his- 
toric page, would, if fairly analyzed, be found to 



SERMONS. 



39 



spring from any nobler principle than the sordid love 
of self. Let us not wonder at this dearth of high 
virtue and lofty aim among creatures from whom 
great things might be expected. Let us not wonder 
that a refined Epicureanism has spread its chilling 
blight over the whole surface of society, killing every 
noble plant, and sparing only noisome and unprofita- 
ble weeds. The world has forgotten its God, and the 
curse of barrenness is upon it. How can it be other- 
wise ? Can men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of 
thistles ? Can we expect that, without any rational 
motive to impel, or object to gain, such imperfect 
creatures as we are should seriously attempt to regu- 
late our lives by a mysterious, abstract idea of per- 
fection, — a perfection which will profit us nothing, 
and which requires self-denials, toils, watchings, and 
many painful sacrifices ? Why should we abridge 
the few comforts that are attainable during our short 
pilgrimage ? why cast away the only happiness within 
our reach, at the command of a metaphysical phan- 
tom ? " Eight, virtue, moral beauty, eternal fitness, — 
ye are all high-sounding words of emptiness. There is 
but one law of action, to which the whole universe is 
submissive. Preserve yourselves, and live while you 
live ! " I do not say that this is the general language 
of men. But it is their real, practical sentiment. 
And this is the cause of that deplorable weakness of 
human virtue, — that impotence to good, combined, 
alas! too often, with a gigantic power of evil,- — so 
much lamented by the moralist. Men transgress the 
law of their nature, because, in their heart, they 
acknowledge no law but conveniency ; yield readily 



40 



S£R310XS. 



to seduction, because resistance will cost sacrifices of 
present ease ; and refuse to engage in hazardous and 
difficult duties ; asking, in surprise at our demand, 
why they should expose themselves ? 

From this moral prostration there is no recovery ; 
for this torpor of the soul's best and highest faculty 
there is no cure, except bringing back God's wander- 
ing creature to himself, its Creator. But this is an 
effectual remedy. The knowledge of God supplies 
exactly what is wanting to inspire man with great 
thoughts, and urge him on to high enterprise. It 
puts scorn on the miserable idea that he is here by 
chance or fate, and for a purpose he knows not what. 
It tells him that he is a favorite subject of the dread 
Monarch of all worlds. It puts into his hands a holy 
and righteous law, by obedience to which God will be 
glorified, and his own best and eternal interests 
secured. It tells him that he has a part to act, a 
career to run, a destiny to fulfil ; that superior beings 
feel an interest in his success, and that the divine 
Saviour who died for him is anxiously watching his 
progress, and praying that his faith fail not. It tells 
him that, beside the internal conflict with sin in his 
heart, there is a battle to be fought with the enemies 
of righteousness in the world ; and all this it en- 
forces by pointing to the great white throne and Him 
who sits thereon, from whose face the heavens and 
the earth flee away. 

It would be insulting the weakest understanding in 
this assembly to ask whether there be not an invigo- 
rating virtue in principles like these honestly and 
cordially embraced. The moment a man has felt 



SERMONS. 



41 



their power, he is prepared for everything. The sub- 
lime conception of being an agent of the God of 
heaven and earth, of his actions having such im- 
portance as to interest all heaven and deserve everlast- 
ing retributions ; this alone, and unaccompanied with 
any other considerations, must invest him, in relation 
to other men, with attributes of a superior being. 
Thus there is implanted in his soul a strong, stubborn, 
unconquerable sense of obligation, which he follows 
wherever it leads. He can deprive himself of the 
most agreeable amusements ; engage in the most har- 
assing and vexatious employments ; separate from 
friends dear to him as his life, never to see them more ; 
pitch his tent with savages among Arctic snows ; nay, 
offer up his body to be burned on the first conviction 
he is made to feel that it is right. If it be right to 
resist an oppressive government, he resists, though he 
finds himself alone. If it be right to submit, he lays 
his head at the foot of the most contemptible minion 
of despotism. If it be right to escape from danger, 
he runs backward ; if it be right to expose himself, 
he runs forward. " He knows how to be abased and 
how to abound ; everywhere and in all things he is in- 
structed both to be full and to be hungry, both to 
abound and suffer need." Is he then a block, des- 
titute of all sensibility to those evils which so power- 
fully affect other men ? Far from it ; but there is a 
principle within him superior to mere sensibility, or, 
to speak more properly, weaker emotions are, accord- 
ing to a well known law of our nature, absorbed in 
stronger, and the high tension of his noble faculties, 
produced by the all-engrossing thought of responsi- 

4* 



42 



SERMONS. 



bility to his God, suffers him not to feel what other- 
wise he would be utterly unable to bear. 

This fully explains the maxim that religion is a 
tamer of the passions ; it truly is so, and to a degree 
of which the strangers to its power have no concep- 
tions. But it does not exterminate, nor even weaken 
them. It only enthrones in the heart one great mas- 
ter-passion to which the others yield implicit subjec- 
tion, their action not enfeebled, but turned into a 
different, channel. Sensual desires cease to be sen- 
sual, and become ardent aspirations after spiritual 
pleasures. Anger and revenge vent themselves in 
holy indignation against sin ; covetousness grasps at 
treasures which neither 44 moth nor rust doth cor- 
rupt ; " and ambition, its eagle eye purified of those 
morbid humors which disabled it from seeing the 
vanity of the miserable baubles which men call 
honors, looks forward and sees thrones and sceptres 
in the skies. Thus temptation loses in a great degree 
its power, finding armed against it not only reason 
and the conscience, but the tastes and inclinations, — 
all those impulses which, whether turned to good or 
evil, rule the man with unlimited sway. The objects 
which are ordinarily so efficacious in seducing men 
from their integrity, 44 the fading echoes of renown, 
power's purple robes, and pleasure's flowery lap," ex- 
ercise no attractions on a subject that is already 
under more powerful attractions. 

I well know how apt men are to discredit repre- 
sentations of character not supported by anything in 
their own experience. 44 Poh ! there are no such men 
in the world," declares the infidel, with many who 



SERMONS. 



43 



think themselves not infidels. But I aver that there 
are many such men ; and if he who denies the fact 
would take as much interest in reading the religious 
history of the world, as details of murderous battles 
and political revolutions, he would not need any 
proof upon the subject. Nay, if he would only take 
the trouble of carefully noting the characters and 
conduct of many within his own observation, he would 
acknowledge that there is in this thing called re- 
ligion a sublime and almost fearful energy. Look at 
the first Christians, — a poor, ignorant, despised hand- 
ful of carpenters, tax-gatherers, and fishermen, — who 
previous to their coming under the influence of evan- 
gelic truth, seemed wanting in ordinary and what we 
might call decent firmness, — who, so far from playing 
the desperado, almost invariably forsook their Master 
in the hour of danger, and in his last trials actually 
fled. But what a change was wrought on that mem- 
orable day, when the Spirit, coming down from on 
high, scattered the cloud which until now had rested 
on their minds, and gave them fully to know the mys- 
teries of his kingdom ! I take a single individual of 
the company, — that trembling coward, who, a month 
before, three times denied his Master, asserting, with 
oaths and execrations, that he knew not the man. I 
now see him standing like a superior being in the 
midst of the very multitude who had crucified his 
Lord, charging them with the foul crime of denying 
the Holy One and the Just ; asserting that God had 
raised him from the dead, of which he was a witness ; 
warning them to repent and be converted, that their 
sins might be blotted out, and declaring that every 



44 



SERMONS. 



soul who heareth not this great prophet shall be 
blotted out from among the people. 

Such instances show what our holy religion can do 
for its disciples, and present a scene full of tremen- 
dous sublimity. So its enemies felt with an intensity 
they could not conceal. They saw that it was 
stronger than death, and that he spoke the simple 
truth who said to them, " We can as cheerfully lay 
down our lives for our religion, as the hardiest phi- 
losopher of you all can put off his coat." This myste- 
rious force, this proud, unconquerable will, as their 
enemies called it, to which nothing was found respon- 
sive in their own bosoms, filled them with a secret 
horror, and they trembled before their victims. 
Meanwhile the servants of God went headlong on, 
preaching and praying, suffering and dying, until the 
powers of darkness were fairly driven from the field, 
and Paganism sunk in the grave which she had 
digged for her indomitable rival. Look at the heroes 
of the Reformation, and ask, if you dare, whether 
there be a moral energy in religious truth. The 
language which dropped from the lips of Luther, on 
a memorable occasion when called to appear at peril 
of his life and testify before kings and emperors, 
was his own; but the glorious spirit which it breathed 
was only common to him with a thousand and one : 
M Were I obliged to encounter at Worms as many 
devils as there are tiles on the houses of that city, 
this would not deter me from appearing there." Look 
at the Puritans of England, those stem and unre- 
lenting foes of arbitrary power, because it dared to 
bind laws on the conscience ; who could die, but 



SERMONS. 



45 



could not yield ; and the oppressed remnant of whom 
left with cheerfulness their native land to bury them- 
selves in an inhospitable wilderness, where their God 
could be worshipped at pure altars and with pure 
offerings. 

Might we not take higher ground ? Were we to 
assert that scarcely a revolution of importance is re- 
corded on the page of history which did not spring 
directly from the impulses of religion ; that there is 
scarcely a nation but owes its character, extent, 
manners, and very existence to this powerful agent, 
would any venture to contradict me ? Too often, in- 
deed, has its might been unhappily directed, and 
terrible devastation has ensued. Too often has the fire 
of heaven been mixed with the strange fire of human 
passion, and the heterogeneous compound has pro- 
duced explosions which have shaken kingdoms to 
their centre. 

But, while I grant this, I demand, in turn, the con- 
cession that the true and pure knowledge of God is 
no way accountable for such disorders. Let us not 
suffer ourselves to doubt that under wise direction 
it is the most safe, as well as potent of all engines for 
meliorating and exalting the condition of men. 
Christians know more than this. They know that it 
is destined to revolutionize the world and restore it 
to more than paradisiac innocence and beauty. 

In their present efforts to accomplish this blessed 
consummation, we perceive another and most illustri- 
ous proof of the moral efficacy of our holy faith. 
Scarcely in the days of the apostles and primitive 
martyrs, and certainly at no time since, does my 



46 



SERMONS. 



text seem to have received a more striking commen- 
tary. A few years ago the opinion began to excite at- 
tention and obtain general currency, that it was the 
duty of Christians to evangelize the world ; and stu- 
pendous as is the enterprise, ridiculous as it may ap- 
pear in the eye of reason, — enlightened by faith, they 
have actually, under the promptings of that stern sense 
of obligation which I have illustrated, girded up their 
loins to the work. Already so much has been done 
that the infidel dare no longer sport his horse- 
laugh; and though he still speaks sarcastically of 
these strange, sanguine men, who intend converting 
the nations by missionaries and Bibles ; yet we sus- 
pect he is beginning to wonder with some mixture of 
awe at their stubborn fixedness of purpose, and even 
to suspect that they may finally attain their object. 
Here he is right. The object shall be attained. The 
work is of God, and his people have entered upon it 
with an intensity of spirit which proves that no oppo- 
sition shall prevail against it. The genius of Chris- 
tianity hath risen from the dust, and shaken off the 
dews of the night from his locks. He is marching 
over mountain and flood, the olive-branch in his 
hand ; his paths dropping fatness on the pastures of 
the wilderness ; springs of water gushing out from 
beneath his feet, and the little hills rejoicing on every 
side. The great ones of the earth may combine to 
arrest his progress, but in vain. The powers of dark- 
ness, repeatedly discomfited in times past, shall 
suffer a more complete overthrow, and from the ris- 
ing of the sun to the going down of the same, the 
Lord shall be great among the Gentiles, for the 



SERMONS. 



47 



mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. " Great is the 
truth ; and it shall prevail." It is stronger than all 
things: " all the earth," — to use the beautiful lan- 
guage of an apocryphal writer, — " calleth upon it and 
heaven blesseth it ; all works shake and tremble at 
it, and with it is no unrighteous thing. Wine is 
wicked ; the king is wicked ; women are wicked ; all 
the children of men are wicked, and there is no truth 
in them; in their unrighteousness also they shall 
perish. As for truth, it endures and is always strong, 
it liveth and conquereth forever more. She doeth 
the things that are just, and refraineth from all 
unjust and wicked things, and all men do well like of 
her works, and she is the strength, kingdom, power, 
and majesty of all ages. Blessed be the God of truth." 

I conclude with addressing a few remarks to the 
two different classes of which my audience is com- 
posed. 

There are doubtless some present who can bear 
practical testimony that I have not been reciting a 
cunningly devised fable. There are some who have 
felt the value and divine efficacy of the knowledge of 
God in various trying situations, — in deep affliction, 
in sore temptation, and in what at the time they 
deemed mortal sickness. In no emergency has it 
failed you, Christians, when its assistance was so- 
licited. It was a friend when no other friend was 
near, guiding you through many a perplexing laby- 
rinth, warning against the snares laid for your in- 
tegrity, and whispering hope when, to all outward 
appearance, hope was clean gone forever. While you 
think of this, and your hearts swell with gratitude to 



48 



SERMONS. 



God for the bestowment of so invigorating and cheer- 
ing a companion, I beseech you to hold fast to it, 
and not to let it go. Cultivate with increasing 
zeal and devotion this most blessed of all sciences. 
The acquisition, as you know, is easily made, re- 
quiring no intricate calculations, nor toilsome and 
hazardous experiments. It is cheaply made. In 
one little book are contained all your treasures, and 
they are there so admirably disposed, unfolded with 
such happy perspicuity, that a child can draw them 
forth and put them to practical use. Believe me, if 
you apply yourselves faithfully to the study I am 
recommending, you will be repaid with usury as you 
advance. Your bread shall not be cast upon the 
waters, to be found after many days, but shall return 
immediately in enriching blessing. The time may 
be at hand when you shall feel the need of all your 
spiritual resources. There may be conflicts to en- 
dure, which you cannot at present imagine, and 
compared with which all your past trials will sink 
into utter insignificance. Prepare for such an hour ! 

You who have not the knowledge of God, I would 
affectionately exhort to consider what has been said, 
with attention and candor. I cannot but think that 
your hearts have acknowledged the truth of our 
statements. Yes, you acknowledge, for you cannot 
deny, that the sincere and honest Christian has infi- 
nite advantages over you. Already, and more than 
once, have your principles failed at the time when 
their support was most needed ; and what can you 
hope in the future but similar disappointments ? You 
have not yet weathered all the gales of life. Perhaps 



SERMONS. 



49 



the heaviest is to come. Why do I say perhaps , 
when I know that you must die f " If thou hast run 
with the footmen and they have wearied thee, how 
canst thou contend with horses ? And if in the land of 
peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, how 
wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan ? " Alas ! 
Man is weak, and God alone is strong. Make your- 
selves, then, acquainted with this great Being while 
the opportunity is offered. Lay hold of his strength, 
and be at peace with him. 



neither Tempts, nor is Tempted. 



III. 



GOD NEITHER TEMPTS, NOR IS 
TEMPTED. 



James 1 : 13. %ttws man sag bshtn \t zb femgteb, | am tempteo al (Sob. 



HE facility with which men violate the laws 
of God, against the clear light of his holy 
Word, is very remarkable, but not more so 
than the dexterity they evince in concealing 
from their own hearts the turpitude of their conduct. 
A man giving himself up to vicious indulgence sel- 
dom fails to bring over his understanding to the side 
of his lusts, whether the gratification be great or 
small, — catching flies or a midnight murder. How 
easy, for example, does he find it to consider his sins 
as misfortunes rather than crimes, deserving com- 
miseration instead of punishment! How easy to 
transfer the blame from himself to another ! Nay, he 
sometimes, with a horrid arrogance, raises his puny 
arm against the heavens, — scornfully retorting the 
charge of criminality, and impeaching God as the 
author of the very ills on which he has denounced 
his malediction. 

A tendency to this vilest of all heresies made its 
appearance in the days of the apostles, which gave 
occasion to the remonstrance of St. James in the text : 
" Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted 

5* 




S ER M N S. 



of God." Mark the energy with which he rebukes the 
sentiment: u Let no man." — Let it not enter the 
heart nor escape the lips. It is an insult to the perfec- 
tions, a deadly blow at the existence, of the holy and 
supreme Euler of the universe. This is the doctrine 
which shall now engage our attention, and I shall 
not insult your understanding by dwelling on its 
great importance. When firmly established in the 
mind, it will prove the strongest inducement to holi- 
ness and the most effectual antidote to the love of 
sin. Besides, to believe that God has no participa- 
tion in our crimes is to feel our own inexcusahleness ; 
and this is a lesson which must be learned. " Every 
mouth must be stopped," etc. Without it we are 
altogether unprepared to receive the transcendent 
gift of redemption through his dear Son. 

Before enforcing the thought of the apostle, let 
me briefly show that such an exhortation is needed, 
— that the disposition to charge blameworthiness on 
God exists and betrays itself frequently where it is 
not suspected. It will thus appear that we are not 
attacking a phantom or man of straw, but a real 
and tangible evil. 

That men are prone to charge God with an im- 
proper agency in sin clearly appears from the light 
thoughts they entertain of the evil of sin. It is very 
evident that their conceptions of its turpitude are in 
general low and inadequate. They think it a small 
matter, and that which strikes them as the greatest 
paradox in the Bible is its stern denunciation of 
endless wrath on every soul that doeth evil. How is 
this propensity to think lightly of the greatest of 



SERMONS. 



55 



curses to be explained ? These men have no such 
contemptuous ideas of sins against civil society, as 
murder and rebellion. Why, then, should they 
imagine that transgression loses all its venom the 
moment we view it as committed against the greatest 
and most exalted of Beings ? The fact is, they more 
than suspect that God himself is the Tempter. Could 
they be convinced that he is infinitely removed from 
aiding and abetting their crimes, they would see the 
force of the terrible delineations of their turpitude 
contained in the sacred record. But, secretly cher- 
ishing the idea of his virtual cooperation, it is not 
surprising that they find a difficulty in believing it to 
be the object of his abhorrence. 

The fact under notice is proved by another reign- 
ing disposition of men, — their propensity to blame 
God for their afflictions. The true cause of all suffer- 
ing is sin. Sin is violation of the law of God. Now, 
were transgressors fully convinced that the purity of 
the Deity startles from everything like abetting re- 
bellion against his own authority, they would see in 
the severest of their sufferings nothing more than a 
righteous retribution. It is the thought that God is 
the cause of sin which makes them repine at his 
being the cause of suffering. They view him as 
they are taught to view the devil, — as first tempting 
them to transgression, and then taking pleasure in 
inflicting pain on account of it. Hence their fret- 
fulness and rage under trial. Hence their daring 
and almost blasphemous challenges of the Deity : 
" Why hast thou dealt with me thus ? " 

But, to settle the matter at once, I appeal to con- 



56 



SERMONS. 



science. Are there not many within the sonnd of 
my voice who mnst acknowledge that their hearts 
cherish the unworthy conception rebuked in my 
text ? What mean all those apologies and explana- 
tions which are so often found on their lips ? This 
man pleads in self-vindication the force of his pas- 
sions. He was born with such impetuous desires 
that, poor, unfortunate creature as he is, he cannot 
resist them. Another explains his misconduct by his 
circumstances in life, well remembering (for this is 
the essence of his plea) that God only orders the lot. 
A third talks of the attractiveness of the forbidden 
object, leaving us to answer the question ourselves. 
Who gave it its seductive charms ? Our bountiful 
Parent has stored the world with blessing. He has 
commanded his sun to shine, given fragrance to the 
rose, carpeted the earth with verdure, and made the 
very food we eat a medium of pleasure. His un- 
grateful child professes that this exuberance of good- 
ness has spoiled him ; more than insinuating that if 
he had been placed in a wilderness or dungeon he 
would have proved a much better and more estima- 
ble character. Is it not so ? I ask you to investigate 
the point each for yourselves. You may be making 
this foul charge, though not aware of it. It is a 
solemn truth that men do not know their own malig- 
nity nor the dreadful workings of depravity within, 
until the declarations of the word of God force them 
to rigid self-examination. 

We proceed now to establish the doctrine of the 
text, " Let no man say he is tempted of God." And 
we shall do it by a threefold appeal to his character, 



SERMONS. 



57 



his laws, and the powerful motives by which he has 
enforced obedience. 

In every trial between man and man, it is usual to 
attach very considerable importance to the character 
of the parties. If the person accused has hitherto 
sustained the reputation of an innocent and honest 
man, a presumption exists in his favor of no trifling 
weight. If, besides, he has long been illustrious for 
dignity, talent, and high moral worth, the first among 
the first in every honorable enterprise, so that when 
the eye sees him it blesses him, and the widow's 
heart sings for joy, what a noble field of defence 
opens up before an eloquent and able advocate ! If 
it appears, also, on proof, that his accusers are mean 
and profligate wretches, who, at war with virtue, are 
discharging their venom on one of its most distinguished 
living examples, actuated by sheer malice and the de- 
sire to obtain unlimited license for their own abomina- 
tions, would anything be wanting to complete his 
vindication, and overwhelm with scorn the ruffian 
conspirators against his spotless fame ? 

Now, let us apply these analogies to the case before 
us. We are engaged in trying an accusation of the 
great God by sinners. The characters of both are fully 
delineated in the oracles of truth. It is established, in 
the first place, that the former is the High and Holy 
One who inhabits eternity, of a purity so bright that 
the " heavens are unclean in his sight, and his angels 
are charged with folly." Arrayed as he is with in- 
finite wisdom and power, his holiness is his favorite 
attribute, the very diadem of his glory. Reason 
itself attests this truth. As the idea of a Supreme 



58 



SERMONS. 



and Eternal Being seems to be a part of the mind 
itself necessarily evolved in the gradual development 
of its faculties, so perfect, unspotted rectitude seems 
an essential part of that idea. We cannot separate 
it from the notion and definition of a God for a single 
moment. Conceive, if you can, of a malevolent, 
cruel, treacherous Deity, and you will next be able 
to conceive of luminous darkness, unextended space, 
a three-sided circle, or any other palpable contradic- 
tion. Such a sentiment is a pitch of extravagance 
far beyond Atheism, for though men may be found who 
deny the existence of a Creator, they will cheerfully 
concede that, the point of his existence being demon- 
strated, he is a Being necessarily and infinitely 
perfect. " If there is a Power above us (Atheism 
itself acknowledges), he must delight in virtue" 

This, then, is the established, the conceded fact ; 
and on it we build our plea for the injustice of all 
those insinuations which represent him as tampering 
with the sinner in his trespasses. Can the same foun- 
tain send forth sweet waters and bitter ? We may 
find ourselves embarrassed in explaining many parts 
of his conduct. We know that he did not prevent 
the entrance of sin ; we know that he still permits it. 
These difficulties might have weight, had we not cer- 
tain evidence of character, that sin is in diametrical 
opposition to his essential nature. " This being so, 
we must cast doubt to the winds, and believe that 
all the intricacies of his procedure are perfectly con- 
sistent with the most amiable goodness, the most 
untainted righteousness. What would become of 
the most exalted innocence among men, if every 



SERMONS. 



59 



slight appearance was tortured into an argument of 
guilt ? 

There is another consideration well worthy of 
notice. It is the dictate both of reason and revela- 
tion, that the Deity is happy in and of himself. He. 
cannot, therefore, propose any profit by going out of 
his own natural character, and inducing his creature 
to violate the rule of righteousness. Is it for his 
interests that his attributes be exposed to foul dis- 
honor ; that the harmony of his government be dis- 
turbed ; that his creatures, whom he formed for him- 
self, should raise the standard of opposition, and 
overspread his fair domain with treason, anarchy, 
and blood ? Let these considerations be put against 
all those false and delusive colorings which a corrupt 
imagination delights to throw around his conduct. 

Let us next inquire, who are the accusers ? Our sin- 
ful hearts. And have not these been long known as 
interested, unprincipled impostors, ever ready to call 
things by false names ? Do they not lie and mislead 
us every hour in matters of the smallest and greatest 
moment ? Mark with what dexterity the vilest 
criminal on earth takes hold of everything in his 
favor ; and how, even after receiving the sentence of 
the law, its justice approved by all who hear it, he 
pleads his innocence as if he were certainly in the 
right, and the whole world was certainly in the 
wrong. Let us remember that the heart of every 
sinner has a deep interest in making out the charge 
that God is the tempter. It is well aware that if 
success crowned the attempt there would be an end 
of responsibility, an end of crime, an end of punish- 



60 



SERMONS. 



ment ; that full license would be given to riot in all 
that is unholy and vile. Let it be driven out of 
court, therefore. Let its mouth be shut. Let not its 
whisper be heard in this important question. 

This is our first plea ; and we direct you, secondly, 
to his laws. Were the chief magistrate of the com- 
monwealth impeached for sowing disorder and vice 
through the state, and seducing, by all methods in his 
power, the subject into evil courses, it is obvious that 
one point of severe inquisition would be the laws 
enacted during his administration. These are the 
formal expressions of the ruler's will. If, then, it 
could be shown that the whole of his legislation had 
been distinguished for administering the wisest 
checks to vice and the strongest encouragements to 
industry, virtue, and social order, a defence would be 
set up not easily shaken. But is not such the char- 
acter of the laws of God ? Are they not holy, just, 
and good ? Who will dare to affirm that they sanc- 
tion in the least degree any of the disorders of the 
human heart ? As to the idea, sometimes insinuated, 
that he may, by a secret agency, contravene his own 
laws, it has not the shadow of foundation. We have 
seen that he has no interest in contravening them. 
His character forbids it. Why, then, should a 
thought be cherished so derogatory, I do not say to 
his holiness, but his power? for who made him so 
dependent on his subjects that he finds it necessary 
to equivocate and secretly work against his own 
edicts ? Lying is the offspring of weakness. Power 
never lies. And yet you will indulge in suppositions 
that make the great God contradict himself, and fal- 



SERMONS. 



61 



sify like the very weakest of mankind. And what 
necessitates this absurd alternative ? Nothing more 
than the idea that there are certain appearances 
which cannot well be explained without imagining 
some degree of agency on his part in sin ; as if there 
were not a thousand appearances, not to say certain- 
ties, on the other side, which have infinitely higher 
claim to our respect. 

Lest, however, any one may allege that the laws of 
God are mere dead letters, while all the powerful 
inducements to action are favorable to disobedience, 
we call your attention to our third plea, namely, that 
God has not only guarded the interests of holiness 
by good laws, but has proposed the strongest possible 
motives to obedience, and the strongest possible 
motives against their violation. Here we pierce the 
very core of the foul charge against the Deity. 
When men of licentious opinions represent him as 
tempting to sin, their meaning is that he proposes 
motives alluring to the commission of it by the 
exhibition of a certain good to be obtained, and cer- 
tain evils to be avoided. Now, if it appears that he 
does not; that the motives he presents to his love 
and service are immeasurably greater than all on the 
side of transgression, the question is put to rest, and 
the cause of God completely triumphs. On this 
point, what more needs to be said than that he has 
sanctioned his laws by denunciations of everlasting 
punishment, and promises of eternal reward ? No 
one can evade their force by pretending doubts con- 
cerning their reality. They are most clearly revealed, 
not in whispers, like the dark, ambiguous oracles of 

6 



62 



S£B3fONS. 



a pagan temple, but in thunder, like the law from 
Sinai. They are also sanctions equally fitted to all 
mankind. A midst the great variety of temperament 
among men, it is very possible that inducements 
which, when presented to certain minds, are almost 
resistless, may to another be no inducements at all. 
Here is one great defect in human law : with all 
their good-will and dexterity, legislators find them- 
selves unable to devise sanctions of universal applica- 
tion ; and here the excellency of those provided by 
our Divine Lawgiver, that as all men have the same 
fear of misery and desire of immortality, all are 
equally capable of appreciating the threatened ill 
and promised good. 

It may be said, perhaps, that motives drawn from 
the future worlds of happiness and misery are not so 
well calculated as some others to come home immedi- 
ately to the bosom; that temporal rewards would 
have possessed much more efficacy ; that the argu- 
ment, therefore, from the profusion of eternal sanc- 
tions is defective, — it being still true that God has 
not done what he could have done to deter men from 
unholiness. In reply to this, let us for a few mo- 
ments allow that no sanctions, but those drawn from 
eternity, are provided, — nothing being promised 
or threatened in the life that is ; the question fairly 
presents itself, why are not these sufficient ? why 
do they not come home immediately to the bosom ? 
Will any one who hears me say that they are un- 
adapted? Shame on the assertion, if it be made. 
You feel that you were destined for immortahty. 
Every desire and instinct of the soul bears witness 



SEEM ONS. 



63 



that yours is a nobler prerogative than that of the 
beasts that perish. What motives, then, are so well 
calculated to exercise a controlling influence as those 
related to that future existence, which a still, small 
voice within has long taught you to anticipate ? You 
say you cannot grasp eternity in your contemplations. 
Present retribution is something tangible, with which 
you feel entirely at home. But of the world that as 
yet is not, the world beyond the grave, no effort of 
imagination can produce a lively impression. I will 
not deny the truth of these assertions ; but allow me 
with all candor to state why it is that you find your- 
self so indisposed to appreciate eternal rewards. 
The reason is your degradation by sin and sensuality. 
You have so long been content to hold exclusive con- 
verse with the objects that are seen and temporal, 
that your mental vision has become dimmed ; you 
cannot look beyond the vicissitudes of the present 
transitory scene ; you cannot believe in a hell, be- 
cause you do not feel it ; you cannot credit an eter- 
nity, because it is not yet begun. But this debility of 
spirit, this slavery to present impressions, is not the 
work of God. He created you with an understand- 
ing capable as well of reasoning of the things that 
will be, as comparing the things that are. He gave 
you the imagination, on whose eagle wing you could 
soar far above the miserable objects which engross 
your regards, hold communion with angels round 
the heavenly throne, and look down the horrid steep 
into the dungeons of despair. If these powers you 
have neglected to exercise, and by consequence the 
talent is withdrawn, the fault is your own. Inability 



64 



SERMONS. 



to grasp the sanctions of eternity is only another 
name for low carnality, — a rooted opposition of heart 
to contemplations worthy of your rational nature. 

But it is time to attack the principle on which the 
whole of this pretended reasoning is founded, namely, 
that the temporal motives to a course of sin are more 
powerful than the temporal motives to holiness. We 
deny it, and affirm that, limiting our view within the 
narrow horizon of this life, God has provided every 
security for virtue, consistent with the probationary 
character in which we at present stand. We wish to 
make every reasonable concession. We allow that 
this is not our rest ; that the rewards of obedience 
bloom in the upper paradise, where alone they can be 
plucked and enjoyed without a tear ; that, on the 
other hand, God does not recompense the sinner with 
the full harvest which his crimes are preparing. Still 
we hold that the general arrangements of Providence 
are such as to honor with decided preference a holy 
life. Endeavor to divest yourselves of the illusions 
created by the glare of outward splendor, and meet 
with true philosophical impartiality the question, 
whether the votary of virtue or vice enjoys the great- 
est amount of substantial happiness, and you will 
find a superiority on the side of the former, which, 
previous to examination, nothing would have induced 
you to believe. As to the happiness derived from 
God's good creatures, he has it, and in the best way too, 
in proper subordination to more exalted felicities. 
What gratification of sense, intellect, fancy, is en- 
joyed by the most dainty epicure, which the pious 
man has not ? The former relishes savory food ; so 



SERMONS. 



65 



does the latter. His palate possesses as delicate sen- 
sibility ; his eye as eagerly takes in the beauteous 
prospect ; and his ear is equally ravished with sweet 
sounds. All his holy dispositions combine to fit him 
for enjoyment ; his humility makes every blessing 
tenfold more delicious from the consciousness that it is 
not deserved ; his temperance preserves him from 
that painful nausea which is a constant tax on immod- 
erate indulgence ; his love to his God gives ineffable 
beauty to the meanest objects, because he sees in them 
all the impress of his heavenly Parent's beneficence. 
He can take delight in listening to the hoarse music 
of the tempest, as well as the melody of the grove ; 
in winter's snows, as well as summer's green, and au- 
tumn's sober gray ; because of all he can exclaim, 
"They are thy works, Parent of good ! " 

Even amid the most trying afflictions, — disap- 
pointments, sickness, old age, — he has a fountain 
within that is incessantly sending forth waters of re- 
freshment, a uniform flow of cheerfulness and sat- 
isfaction that makes a perpetual feast. Memory 
calls up in review the pleasing picture of the past ; 
Faith stands before him, like the angel of light, and 
turns the shadow of death into morning. 

The sinner, on the contrary, is never at rest, 
never happy. When deprived of the opportunity of 
gratification, he tosses like a wild bull in a net ; 
and even when he enjoys, enjoyment soon palls, and 
he runs from object to object as if heaven had cursed 
him with a thirst never to be satisfied ; and, verily, 
this curse is on him. God has so constituted blessings 
of an inferior nature, that, in the very fruition of 

6* 



66 



SERMONS. 



them, we are taught to feel the necessity of a bet- 
ter and more enduring portion. Thus it is, that the 
worldling, in the midst of all his pageantry and splen- 
dor, when he turns within, finds emptiness and an 
aching void. To this must be added, what is more 
terrible than all, the upbraidings of an accusing con- 
science. Ah, could we look within and hear him in 
his self-communings, when all around seems gayety 
and joy, we would often be surprised with the dole- 
ful exclamation, " If this be happiness, God, what is 
misery ? " 

But why, it may be asked, is there any enjoyment 
connected with sin ? Why is not every unlawful in- 
dulgence instantly followed by pure and absolute mis- 
ery, giving to the pious man, not a superiority only, 
but a monopoly of happiness ? If, for example, our 
food, the very moment we abuse it to gluttony and 
drunkenness, became wormwood and gall, the arrange- 
ment would be unexceptionable. But such is not the 
constitution of things. The objects of sense still re- 
main tempting, and impart pleasure, long after they 
have begun to be abused. To this I reply, that 
though man may violate the law of his being, it is 
not to be expected that God will in turn violate the 
order he has established. He has given to the vari- 
ous objects around us the power of communicating a 
certain kind of enjoyment. This is a great general 
law, and though he might by his omnipotence change 
their nature, yet he will not break in upon the uni- 
formity of his works and ways to accommodate the 
sensualist. He will not, in other words, by a mira- 
cle, change wine, that " maketh glad the heart," into 



SERMONS. 



67 



corrosive sublimate, on the uncorking of the second 
bottle. Besides, allowing that he did so, would the 
cause of holiness be profited ? It would check, in- 
deed, the outward exacerbations of the fever of de- 
praved desires, as the sinner would be made to feel 
at once the pain of stepping beyond the bounds of 
rectitude ; but it would have no effect on the disor- 
ders within ; he would still be the slave of appetite, 
though he could not gratify it ; his virtue would be 
the offspring of a restraint which he abhors, and in 
every respect he would remain a lover of the creature 
more than a lover of God. 

Here we might leave the subject. Yet, as we have 
undertaken to vindicate the ways of God against the 
hard speeches and thoughts of men, it seems not im- 
proper to notice the favorite argument which they 
employ in support of the accusation, and which has 
served to thousands in every age the office of a 
staff in the down-hill course to perdition. The argu- 
ment is, that to the Author of our nature may be 
justly imputed the moral character of the acts of his 
creatures, for he gave the 'principles in which they 
originated. He implanted those passions from which, 
as from a fountain, proceed the bitter streams of 
iniquity. " God knows," they continue, " we are 
poor creatures ; have been guilty of many disorders, 
and fear we shall be guilty of many more. It ap- 
pears destined that it should be so. We were cre- 
ated with such an excitable, nervous organization, 
with so many and impetuous desires, that we are en- 
tirely unable to resist. Our hope is that He,who formed 
us as we are, will make tender allowance for our in- 



68 



SEE HONS. 



firmities." Such is the happy scheme by which they 
attempt to make their intemperance, their gluttony, 
their covetousness and lust, a partnership affair be- 
tween them and the Almighty. 

All the disorder that exists in the soul proceeds 
from the helpless bondage in which Nature — Heaven 
save the mark! — has placed us to the passions. If 
they rage and turmoil like furious beasts, it is by 
virtue of the power which the Creator gave them. 
It is our part to submit. Their force is irresistible. 
We have no bridle they will obey. So pleads the sot 
so long as he can wag a tongue, and hold a glass to 
his head. So talks the debauchee. The murderer 
belongs to the same school : he is a most docile and 
obedient pupil of Nature. It is always at her voice 
that he whets the dagger, and drives home the ball, 
— always ! 

Let me briefly point out the gross sophism which 
lies at the foundation of this atrocious calumny on 
God and man. They pretend that, as the pas- 
sions are a component part of our nature, so blind 
obedience to them must be obedience to nature. 
But these, we beg leave to say, are two very dif- 
ferent propositions. That they belong to our na- 
ture is freely granted, but we utterly deny that they 
are our tvhole nature. They are the motive-powers 
of the soul, the grand incentives to action, without 
which man would be a stock, his life a " waveless 
calm, a slumber of the dead." There is, however, 
at the same time, a directive and guiding power, of 
which the system of these gentlemen very conven- 
iently takes no notice. Man has the noble faculties 



SERMONS. 



69 



of reason — conscience — freedom, which stand at 
the helm, regulating the onward movements, check- 
ing, moderating, stopping them, and preventing ex- 
cess and wild disorder. To follow nature, then, is 
not to be the blind, submissive slave of impulses, but 
to follow them as directed by their appropriate and 
legitimate master. Indeed, it is this which consti- 
tutes the great distinction between man and the 
brute. The latter rushes on his object with headlong 
impetuosity, intent only on satisfying the all-engross- 
ing inclination of the moment. Man, with the same 
eagerness of desire, can pause, deliberate, compare 
the future with the present ; and, by calling up 
the awful forms of duty, honor, and retribution, sub- 
due the most raging storm of appetite. Facts with- 
out number prove that this part of our mental nature 
is not so incurably wild and savage as some suppose, 
— that it can be made to obey as well the bridle as 
the spur. The rudest aboriginal of our western 
forest often does violence to his natural impulses. 
With all his characteristic thoughtlessness, he is seen 
almost every day sacrificing, under the influence of 
reflection, the present to the future. Give him a 
quantity of food merely sufficient to satisfy present 
hunger, informing him, at the same time, that no 
more may be expected for two days, he will divide 
it, reserving a portion for the following day, though 
his craving is scarcely in the least diminished. In 
other words, the superior power of reason steps in, 
and pronounces the expediency of denying himself to- 
day that life may be sustained to-morrow. His dog 
would not act thus ; and here is just the difference 



70 



SEEM ONS. 



between man and the dog. Now, if hunger and thirst, 
the most untamable of all appetites, can be thus 
controlled, why should we deem it impossible to con- 
tain within bounds others less importunate ? What 
impulse is there so violent that it must be obeyed ? 
Not avarice. Craving as it is, and mean in the prose- 
cution of its schemes, it can do without its idols. 
Not love. Occasionally, indeed, it turns the head of 
some silly, novel-reading boy, but its stings are sel- 
dom mortal ; and though in his romantic frenzy he 
terms the beloved object his universe, his heaven, 
his all, facts prove that he can suffer the loss Df her 
without serious inconvenience. Ungratified anger 
seldom kills a man. Deprive him, in the most fu- 
rious paroxysm, of all opportunity of wreaking it, 
and you occasion only a little overflowing of bile into 
the gall-ducts. Indeed, it is extraordinary what 
small circumstances sometimes domineer over the 
most violent passions, and on what slight occasions 
a man exercises his natural authority over them. 
I presume there is not one man in a hundred, who, 
when grossly insulted, could not restrain himself in 
the presence of a lady. The most shameless profli- 
gate would decline perpetrating certain descriptions 
of crime before the eyes of a little child. How 
promptly does the young drunkard, in the midst of 
his boon companions, throw away the cup when told 
that a father or guardian is at the door ! What 
more evident, then, than the fact that there is a power 
superior to impulse, — that, if the passions are wild 
beasts, as is sometimes represented, there is a God 
within man that can enter the cage, beard the lion, 



SERMONS. 



71 



trample on the tiger, and bring them purring and 
crouching at his feet. So far from being masters, 
they can be made humble servants at will of this 
superior faculty. Nor has it entirely lost its au- 
thority in the most abandoned. It survives the most 
destructive process, and shows, in the most debased, 
that it was born to command ; for where is the wretch 
who does not sometimes deny himself at its warning 
voice ? In a virtuous and well-regulated mind it reigns 
supreme. One word from its throne can hush the 
most furious agitations of passion into a holy sabbath- 
calm. Some of you are acquainted with many beau- 
tiful historical illustrations of this ; and perhaps the 
chief value of history consists in the lessons it ex- 
hibits of the power exercised by virtue over the 
soul in most adverse circumstances. You have read, 
doubtless, the beautiful anecdote concerning David in 
the book of Kings. Exhausted with fatigue and 
thirst during a severe battle, he expresses his desire 
for a little water, which could only be obtained by 
passing through the camp of the enemy. Three of 
his captains rise, rush through the hostile phalanx, 
and return with the water in a helmet. The king 
receives it ; but, struck with the heroic affection which 
had encountered such dangers for his sake, instead 
of satisfying his thirst, he dashes it on the ground, ex- 
claiming, "Be it far from me that I should do this. 
Is not this the blood of men that went in jeopardy of 
their lives ? " A similar incident is recorded of Sir 
Philip Sydney. Being mortally wounded and carried 
off the field, he earnestly demanded a little water. 
On its being brought, and while in the act of touch- 



72 



SERMONS. 



ing it to his lips, he perceives a wounded soldier 
gazing at him with a look which told how he coveted 
the refreshing beverage. He puts away the untasted 
cup, and commands it to be presented to him, saying 
" Poor fellow, he needs it most." Let such en- 
nobling facts as these decide the question whether 
man is the helpless slave of appetite. 

But they are not the only facts on this subject. 
Not only does history abound with instances of men 
who, under the sharpest irritations, have resisted the 
impetuosity of passion, but of men who, by culti- 
vating the divine faculty of self-command, have cre- 
ated within themselves second natures, and have be- 
come remarkable for virtues directly opposed to the 
vicious inclinations which seemed a part of their 
original constitution. Thousands and thousands, who 
by temperament were sensualists of the lowest grade, 
and seemed born to wallow in animal enjoyment, 
have become models of a most elevated and austere 
morality ; thousands, who, by complexion, were tur- 
bulent, fierce, irascible, have, like our immortal 
Washington, changed themselves into doves and 
lambs, — proving that the heaven-born soul is its own 
master if it only chooses to exert the mastery. Away, 
then, with the hideous notion that our Creator has 
placed us under the fatal necessity of sinning. 

They who reason thus are like an ignorant rustic, 
who, gazing at one of those magnificent floating 
palaces which darken our rivers, would infer, from 
the explosive energies of the mighty agents employed 
in propelling them, that certain destruction would 
result from their action. But he does not see the 



SEBMONS. 



73 



stupendous balance-wheel that gives order and regu- 
larity to the general movement. He does not see 
the woodman adjusting the fuel, the engineer at the 
safety-valve and stopcock, the master at the helm; 
else his alarm would be changed into rapturous ad- 
miration at the spectacle of so tremendous a mass 
obeying the commands of a pigmy, five feet high, 
with the docility and promptness of a child, — ad- 
vancing, retrograding, stopping, turning to the right 
and to the left, as his sovereign will directs. Such is 
human nature. The passions are the moving power, 
the fire, and the steam. The soul, in her higher 
faculties of reason and conscience is the woodman, 
the engineer, and the master at the helm. Let them 
be faithful to the high trust committed to them by 
the Creator, and moral disorder will be banished from 
the earth. If they choose to forsake their post, 
dreadful will be the consequence ; but no blame will 
attach to the wise and mighty Architect. Of all this 
we have a witness in our own breasts. We are con- 
scious of mental freedom and power of self-control, 
and have therefore the same proof of its reality as of 
our own existence. Hence that feeling of remorse, 
which is inseparable from every criminal act, and 
bids defiance to all the speculations of an atheistical 
philosophy. Stand aloof from the jargon of muddy, 
scholastic disputation, and listen to the voice of your 
own hearts. You will have the best answer to those 
wretched sophists who would cheat you out of your 
religion, your immortality, and your God. 

The improvement to be made of this subject is the 
establishing in our minds a firm conviction of the 

7 



74 



SERMONS. 



righteousness of G-odln all his dealings, and especially 
in the denouncement of his wrath against sin. The 
great Being with whom we have to do is holy. He 
hates sin ; he has no fellowship with it. It is that 
foul stain upon his government which can only be 
washed away by a deluge of wrath. And shall we, 
with this truth staring us in the face, nurture in our 
bosoms the accursed thing, — the only thing in heaven 
or earth the Deity disclaims as his work ? Are there 
any who are endeavoring to find an excuse for their 
offences in the idea condemned by the text? We 
warn such that they are mistaken, and that their 
deceitful sophistries may be their ruin. Believe me, 
you will find the blame of your sins your own exclu- 
sively, and this blame shall be peculiarly aggravated 
by the fact that you have rejected One who has 
offered to save you from their dreadful consequences. 
Seeing, then, that you are still within the reach of 
mercy, make it your great, your chief concern to 
avoid so tremendous a condemnation. 



% 



The Great Problem. 



IV. 



THE GREAT PROBLEM. 



Rom. 5:12. W.\zxziaxz, as bg anz man sin zxdzxzis into i\z bwrlb, anb 
b-eatlj bg sht; anb so b^atlj passrir upon all mzix, iax all |jab* 
sinneb. 



T is a fact, confirmed by the whole history 
of man, that we are born unholy and depraved. 
There are lodged in the heart strong and un- 
governable propensities to sin, evincing their 
existence so early, and so universally, that we can 
hesitate as little in ascribing them to nature as the 
appetites of hunger and thirst, or the emotions of joy 
and grief. Amply, however, as experience and the 
Word of God support the doctrine of native deprav- 
ity, it is calculated, on its first exhibition, to surprise, 
to disconcert us. Here is a whole race of immortal 
beings poisoned in its source, the victim of some 
strange malformation, we may almost say, in the 
mother's womb. That misfortune should pursue the 
evil-doer, is the obvious dictate of reason ; but that 
evil should erect her throne in an unoffending world, 
— that its inhabitants should be deprived of the 
chance of earning, each for himself, a more favorable 
allotment, by a misfortune experienced at birth, is a 
riddle which we cannot but feel a strong desire to see 
expounded. 

„ The enlightened heathen of antiquity spent many 
7* 



78 



SERMONS. 



a weary hour in speculating on the problem, but to 
little purpose. Some of them had recourse to the 
doctrine of the preexistence of souls, — supposing 
the present ill-estate of human nature to be the effect 
of sin committed in a previous life, of which all re- 
membrance was lost. A strange method, you say, 
of untying a knot. But make charitable allowance, 
if you please, for inquirers situated as they were. 
Illumination from the sempiternal source was denied 
them. The problem they undertook to resolve was 
beset with difficulties, and, if they resorted to extraor- 
dinary methods of solution, it shows how seriously 
they were perplexed. The most fantastic errors of 
the human mind have often a noble source, — origi- 
nating in an honest and earnest desire to expound 
the mysteries of the universe. 

Others took refuge in Manicheanism, or the doc- 
trine of two eternal principles. Not conceiving it 
possible that a just Being would allow the present state 
of things to exist, had he power to prevent it, they sup- 
posed that a good and evil God coexisted with each 
other from all eternity, between whom there was a con- 
tinual conflict, in which the latter had sometimes the 
upper hand. The question, therefore, whence comes 
corruption of nature with all its attendant evils, met 
a prompt reply. The benevolent Oromascles was 
foiled by the accursed Ahriman. Thus did heathen 
philosophy toss and flounder, — " in endless mazes 
lost " — certain of the fact that she stood in the midst 
of a ruined world, but unable to explain it on any 
solid or satisfactory principles. Among the many 
blessings we enjoy as Christians, it is not the least 



SERMONS. 



79 



that we have a clear historical if not metaphysical 
solution of this interesting problem. " By one man 
sin entered into the world." " In Adam all die." 
" The judgment was by one to condemnation." " By 
one man's offence death reigned by one." " By 
one man's disobedience many were made sinners." 
Nothing can be more transparent than the meaning 
of these remarkable passages. They establish, beyond 
the possibility of doubt or evasion, a moral as well as 
natural union of the most vital character between the 
human family and their original parent. His con- 
duct and destiny have immediately affected the con- 
duct and destiny of his descendants. This is the key 
to the dark chambers of death, surveyed in our last 
discourse. We do not say that the explanation an- 
swers every question which curiosity and a prurient 
fancy may ask. But it is enough for practical 
purposes. At least, the mind finds in it a point of 
rest, where, wearied with the vain conjectures of 
reason unenlightened by faith, we may calmly repose 
in the hope of further developments in the world of 
light. 

Without entering into a regular disquisition, we 
propose offering a few general thoughts on the sub- 
ject, which may be of use to minds not fully estab- 
lished in the belief of what we consider an important 
if not fundamental article of our religion. 

In searching out the relations which the first man 
sustained to his posterity, we naturally turn with in- 
terest to the historical records concerning him in the 
book of Genesis. Opening the volume, our eye m> 
mediately falls upon a series of interesting transac- 



80 



SERMONS. 



tions iii which he makes the principal figure; and 
the inquiry suggests itself what precise character he 
sustained in them. Must we view him as standing 
alone in his individuality, or as personating the whole 
mass of life that was to proceed from his loins ? The 
latter view is undoubtedly the true one. In all that 
is recorded as given to him or said and done by his 
Creator, the race was considered, — not the individual; 
mankind, — and not the man. We allow no excep- 
tion, not even his name. The word "Adam" is not, 
as many suppose, a proper name expressing his single 
personality, but that of the species, which had a com- 
plete existence in him before the birth of any descend- 
ant. Nor can we doubt that by this fact, — the fact 
that a common and not a particular designation was 
given him, the Creator adumbrated that great law of 
propagation which holds universally in the kingdom 
of organic life, similia ex similibus, " like from like ; " 
in other words, the shoot receives from its parent 
stock a common nature. But let us notice a few 
other particulars recorded. He was formed in the 
divine likeness. Gen. i. 26 : " And Cod said, Let us 
make man in our image after our likeness." No one 
surely discovers here any singular prerogative which 
should distinguish Adam from others. The high 
honor referred to was put upon the species, as the 
apostle Paul expressly informs us. The next thing 
recorded is the blessing pronounced upon him (verse 
28) : " And God blessed them and said, Be fruitful and 
multiply and replenish the earth." Doubtless this 
was a benediction on the whole of the great family 
of man, who are here addressed in the person of 



SERMONS. 



81 



their common father. A third circumstance is the 
power and dominion imparted (verse 28) : " and have 
dominion over the fish of the sea and fowl of the air, 
and over every living thing that moveth on the face 
of the earth." No one can think that this magnifi- 
cent grant was made to Adam alone. It was a na- 
tional charter, conferring rights and immunities on 
the whole community of human beings. When God 
presented him with Eve, and instituted marriage, 
announcing that " man should leave father and 
mother and cleave unto his wife, and they twain 
should be one flesh," our Saviour tells us distinctly 
that his descendants were contemplated equally with 
himself. The like must be said of the institution of 
the Sabbath. 

Now, it were not a little strange if, while in every 
other recorded transaction he stood forth as the pub- 
lic head and type of his species, the interdict of the 
tree of knowledge of good and evil respected him 
only in his individual capacity. But we are not left 
to conjecture. It is just here that we have crowded 
upon us the most decided proofs of his representative 
character. After he committed the act of transgres- 
sion, the offended Lawgiver confronted him and pro- 
nounced a sentence, every word of which, as experi- 
ence proves, was a death-knell to unborn millions. 
To the woman he said, " I will greatly multiply thy 
sorrow and thy conception." How many beside the 
mother of all have felt the bitterness of this entail ? 
To the man he said, " Cursed is the ground for thy 
sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of 
thy life." But where do we read that, when the old 



82 



SERMONS. 



man laid his weary head in the dust, earth recovered 
her paradisiac bloom and Eden smiled again ? There 
is no mistaking this matter. The original penalty is 
felt every day in the sorrows of female conception, — 
in the subjection of the whole sex among by far the 
greater part of Gentile nations, approaching to abso- 
lute bondage, — in the barrenness of the soil, the 
difficulty of procuring subsistence, and the final re- 
turn of the jaded, mortal body to its native dust. 
And if that part of it which is visible and temporal 
be thus fully executed on the collective family of man, 
we can hardly doubt that it is condemned to drink of 
its moral ingredients. The visible is to the thought- 
ful spirit, God's solemn language conveying the invis- 
ible. He who reads aright the volume of external 
nature can discover in it hidden meanings, which 
concern far higher interests than those of our gross 
corporeal nature. Let the honest and calm inquirer 
read the subsequent history of the book of Genesis 
in the light of these remarks. Let his thoughts fix 
on that most significant declaration, " and Adam 
begat a son in his own likeness," — as illustrated in 
the murder of Abel by an infuriate brother ; let him 
follow the progress of the hapless race from one 
measure of iniquity to another, till " God repented 
that he had made man," and then let him draw his 
own conclusions. To my mind, the doctrine we are 
illustrating seems to be taught in the Mosaical record 
almost as clearly as that of creation itself. 

It may not be uninstructive to observe, that the 
principle of government on which it rests is recog- 
nized in other connections ; nay, we find it in almost 



SERMONS. 



83 



every page of the Old Testament annals. To what 
were the Jews indebted for the privilege, enjoyed so 
many ages, of being God's peculiar people ? To their 
connection with believing Abraham. 

On account of the sin of Ham, the posterity of 
Canaan were doomed to perpetual servitude. How 
many youth, and new-born infants perished in the 
waters of the deluge, and in the fires of Sodom ! The 
crime of Achan was so charged on the whole people of 
Israel, that they were made to sustain a bloody defeat. 
Look at the same people at another period of their 
existence. Eighteen hundred years ago, their rulers 
crucified the Holy One, accompanying the act with the 
horrid imprecation, " His blood be on us and on our 
children ! " And have they not been taken at their 
word ? Are not their posterity a nation scattered and 
peeled, meted out and trodden down, the most woful 
spectacle the world can produce, of a race forsaken by 
God? With innumerable revealed facts like these, 
why should we stumble at the primitive imputation ? 
They are fair analogies, proving how the great Legis- 
lator administered his code of laws. They give us 
the usage of government. It inflicts consequences of 
misconduct on whole masses who are connected with 
the original offender. We may dislike the fact, and 
thunder against it with all the rhetoric at our dis- 
posal. But there it stands, in the book of revelation, 
and, as we shall soon see, also in the book of nature, 
— grim, if you please, but substantial, not to be con- 
jured away by epithets, or the pious exclamation, 
" Angels and ministers of grace defend us ! " Doubt- 
less the final issue will prove that God can take care 



84 



SERMONS. 



of his own character, and effectually vindicate this, 
as all his other ways to man. 

We shall call your notice, for a few moments, to 
another aspect of the subject. Our doctrine demands 
assent by a claim of necessity ; no other hypothesis, of 
the least plausibility, even attempting to explain the 
present condition of the human race. Allusion was 
made to this in our prefatory remarks ; but it de- 
serves more than incidental notice, being an argu- 
ment which no sophistry can evade. That our con- 
dition in the world is not a happy one, and that the 
infelicity commences very early, will not be disputed. 
The first cry of the infant, on leaving its mother's 
womb, is a cry of pain, as if it foreboded the evils 
that were to come, and the dark shadow of the 
future already rested on its spirit. It is the subject 
of many distressing maladies. Convulsion racks its 
limbs, — burning fevers dry up the springs of life, — 
usually, too, its death-agonies are more intense than 
those of age more advanced. But these are com- 
paratively trifles. It is the subject, as we have seen, 
of a terrible moral disease, which never fails to de- 
velop itself in enmity to God, and alienation from all 
that is good. I say, then, and say it with all con- 
fidence, that the constitution under which we are 
placed is a melancholy one, and to represent it other- 
wise is an outrage on common sense. 

The question, then, fairly meets us, — whence this 
abnormal, disjointed state of things ? — and must be 
answered in one of the three following ways. Either 
it originated in the sovereign will of our Creator, or 
must be the result of our own misconduct, or must 



SERMONS. 



85 



be traced to that of our first progenitor, in whose 
day the evil undoubtedly commenced. With regard 
to the first, no man can bring himself to believe it 
seriously. What ! the present system that which 
came originally from the hand of God, and which he 
pronounced very good f Impossible ! The thought 
that a benevolent and holy being could place im- 
mortal creatures in so false and unhappy a position — 
from the start — without any previous reason, but 
merely to display his arbitrary power, is perfectly 
shocking. I tell the Almighty he has no right to 
create us as we are. He must be a monster, a 
demon, a very personification of the Manichean prin- 
ciple of evil, if he found it in his heart to send forth 
such an abortion into the theatre of existence. Shall 
we say, then, that the evil is caused by ourselves ? 
Impossible ! we are born in it. The fatal contagion 
seized us in the very article of conception. Nothing 
remains but the last alternative, so amply confirmed 
by revelation, that, being federally united with the 
sinning progenitor of the race, we come into the 
world blighted and fallen creatures. We do not say 
that this explains the whole mystery of the subject, 
but it is satisfactory as far as it goes. It declares 
that our unfortunate family was once under a fair 
and reasonable probation, — that our fates were en- 
twined with one possessing every qualification of a 
representative, and that the great Legislator acts 
rightly in enforcing the consequences. Hence it is, 
that from the moment of existence we are treated as 
out of favor and fellowship with him ; " the streams 
of his goodness," to use the language of another, 

8 



86 



SERMONS. 



" have been intercepted ; the healthful influences of 
his spirit have been withheld, and the soul, once a 
beautiful living temple, is now a shattered ruin ; the 
lamps extinct ; the golden candlestick displaced ; the 
altar overturned ; the sacred incense, which sent roll- 
ing up to heaven its rich perfume, changed into 
hellish vapor." 

Talk not to me of creating sovereignty being the 
cause of all this : I laugh at the explanation. But I 
bow reverently at the thought of its being induced 
by the delinquency of a covenant head, after a fair 
trial, in violation of a solemn compact, in which 
Divine Wisdom saw fit that I should be included. 
This is the whole doctrine of our fall in Adam. It 
does not create the evils under which ive groan. The 
evils exist, whatever doctrine you adopt. There they 
are, around you and within you. The only question 
is, does it furnish the solution of them ? and I say, 
boldly, that, reason itself being judge, nothing has 
ever been thought of which deserves to be named on 
the same day. What comparison between it and 
that, which would resolve, the whole matter into ar- 
bitrary sovereignty, asserting that no sad catastrophe 
has occurred to affect human destiny, but that all 
things go on as from the foundation of the world ? 

We shall now offer a few observations in answer to 
objections ; for it is not to be denied that prejudices 
against our truth are found to prevail extensively ; 
though we have never seen the man, who, closely 
pressed, would not half acknowledge that the belief 
of it was a logical necessity, — a belief from which ■ 
he could not escape. The objections may be all re- 



SERMONS. 



87 



duced to two. 1. Transfer of penal consequences 
to those not actually guilty is unjust. 2. It is 
capricious and arbitrary, answering no valuable 
ends. 

As to the former, we shall not yield to the tempta- 
tion of entertaining you with metaphysical subtilties, 
being well satisfied that they are not profitable in 
establishing the truth of God. They bring it down 
from the lofty vantage ground it occupies as a reve- 
lation from heaven ; and, in general, perplex more 
than they enlighten. We hold that the infinite 
Being is himself the most competent judge of what 
is just and unjust, and shall never allow ourselves to 
declare war against a fact in his moral government, 
because we cannot reduce it to harmony with our 
maxims. Now, we tell these objectors, that they are 
attaching a fact. Dare they deny that man comes 
forth to play his part in the universe under a malig- 
nant planet, — under circumstances the most unpro- 
pitious to his happiness that can well be imagined ? 
Bear in mind what has been repeatedly asserted and 
is beyond denial, — that we are corrupt from the womb, 
that we agonize at the mother's breast, that we die ; 
and when we live to be capable of intelligent action, 
we are the slaves of impulses which we cannot govern, 
and which invariably bring forth fruit unto death. 
The alternative is then before us. If G-od has not 
visited us with these calamities for the sin of Adam, 
he inflicts them for no sin at all. The present uni- 
versal state of the human family is an accident. 
Nature determined the question of its destiny, by the 
tossing up of a copper, and unfortunately it turned up 



88 



SERMONS. 



tails. Is such a theory an improved conception of 
the justice of the holy One ? To treat a race as 
depending for the development of its capacity for 
happiness on the conduct of him with whom they 
are so intimately united by the law of organic life 
that they derive existence from him, and may be 
truly called a part of himself, is very unjust. They 
cannot think of such a thing ; but to maim, and 
torture, to shut up in darkness and pollution ; to ex- 
clude all fair chance of rising to a better condition, 
for no reason whatever, but caprice, — the " so I will, 
so I order," — of a despot, is the quintessence of equity 
and benevolence ! If this be rationalism, then let 
my place be among the bigots. 

In meeting the charge of injustice, we must ob- 
serve, further, that the objector betrays singular 
ignorance of what every day passes around him. 
The position on which he bases his reasoning may be 
carried out, for aught we know, in the planet Her- 
schel, or the fixed stars, but leads to endless ab- 
surdity when applied to our little ball. It is, that 
every moral being should stand or fall, be happy or 
miserable, on his oivn account, without the least 
respect to those with whom he stands connected. 
This is his maxim. To treat intelligent creatures as 
in a state of complete isolation from one another, 
as simple units, or monads, each standing apart, like 
a marble statue on his own pedestal, is an imperative 
and eternal law of divine equity. But can any 
one, possessing ears and eyes, maintain that our 
world is thus governed ? Say it, and you say that 
there is not a man, woman, or child who receives 



SERMONS. 



89 



from the Supreme Being anything like fair treatment. 
We gave examples a few moments since of the 
representative principle in holy Scripture ; we now 
say, they are found everywhere in human life. All 
owe their well or ill being to causes out of them- 
selves — to the previous agency of individuals over 
whom they had no control, and by whom their 
earthly destiny was decided before they saw the 
light. The health and happiness of children depend 
on the behavior of parents. Not to speak of the 
transmission of temperament and constitutional 
qualities, — which is a fact as well established as any 
in science, — if the latter are rude, and devoted to 
criminal pursuits, we anticipate with confidence ap- 
proaching to certainty that the former will share 
in their misery and misconduct. The prosperity 
of nations depends on institutions which originated 
ages since with men whose very names are forgotten. 
All the wars and bloodshed which have turned the 
earth into an Aceldama, may be traced to a few 
ambitious ruffians, whom Providence permitted to 
sway the destinies of their fellow-creatures. It might 
seem odd to say, that there are hundreds of thou- 
sands in our country, suffering at this hour, and a 
still greater number prospering, in consequence of 
something done nearly two hundred years ago, by a 
royal profligate (Charles II.) in England. But the 
oddness disappears after a moment's reflection. 

So it is. Our interests are affected in innumerable 
ways, from innumerable quarters, and often the most 
trifling share in the agency is our own. If you have 
the least doubt of it, answer two or three queries. 

8* 



90 



SERMONS. 



Who are you ; and ivliy are you what you are ? To 
what is owing your respectable station in society, 
your literary attainments, your religious training, 
your hopes of salvation, — everything, in short, that 
makes up your stock-in-hand of privilege and enjoy- 
ment ? Doubtless you see the hand of God in the 
disposal of your lot. But how did he execute his 
designs ? Through the instrumentality of others, and 
so entirely that you dare not, in a single particular, 
boast of being the carver of your own destiny. The 
thought is humbling, but instructive ; and should 
always be called up when we feel disposed to take a 
little complacency in our own virtuous achievements. 
You regard with loathing that bloated ragamuffin, 
who staggers past you in the street, poisoning the air 
with his pestilential breath ; yet it would not be 
safe to try conclusions even with him on the score of 
that kind of merit which justifies a boast. To all 
you say for yourself, the poor loafer could reply in 
the words of the gallant Irishman, who, on being 
taunted by an English soldier because his army had 
suffered a defeat through the misconduct of the leader, 
answered, " Give us your general for an hour, and 
we'll fight the battle over again." Exchange parents 
with that living corruption, — I mean, of course, sup- 
pose the exchange, — and where would be that pious 
and fat old gentleman to whom the whole community 
look up, — so happy in his worldly estate, so happy 
in his religion, in his children, and looking so happy 
at this moment in his well-cushioned pew ? 

Such is the constitution under which we live, — a 
constitution of mutual dependence and intimate con- 



SERMONS. 



91 



nection. We are not separate and isolated indi- 
viduals, — single atoms floating in the immensity of 
the universe, — but branches of one common stock, 
members of one great body, so that, if one suffers 
many suffer with it. It might have been otherwise. 
We might have been created independent of each 
other ; but at what a cost ! Have you counted the 
cost ? Society could not have existed ; for society 
rests on mutual dependence. There would have 
been no paternity, no brotherhood, no friendship, no 
family, no sympathy, nor reciprocal aid. Man would 
have been a solitary, sullen, selfish creature, a 
stranger to the joys arising from the commingling of 
heart with heart and the intercourse of congenial 
souls. God determined otherwise. He determined 
that we should be one ; consisting, indeed, of many 
parts, but these parts indissolubly joined together. 
With this view, he gave us unity of physical origin, 
making of one blood all nations of the earth ; and, to 
show how fully he would carry out the intention, he 
united us in the universal father of the race, as our 
great moral head. If the system has its disadvan- 
tages, it, on the other hand, works out inestimable 
benefits, and the evils will be corrected at the proper 
time. At any rate, it is the system, and let not the 
clay say to him that formed it, " Why hast thou 
made me thus ? " 

The second objection which we propose to consider 
is that the constitution of things supposed is arbitrary 
and capricious, answering no valuable ends. " There 
seem no good reasons for God's departing from the 
principle of making responsibility depend on personal 



92 



SEEM ONS. 



agency. What was gained, by ordaining, that we 
should be implicated in the consequences of guilt not 
our own? " To this it is obvious to reply that, were 
the divine purposes wrapt in impenetrable darkness, 
it would be no argument against a fact. Far from 
us be the presumption of picking flaws in the work 
of our Creator, or insinuating how much better a 
system he would have contrived had we been ad- 
mitted to his cabinet council, with our square and 
compasses and perpendicular lines. 

But we are far from granting that no valid reasons 
appear why he chose to base his dealings with us on 
the principle of representation. On the contrary, we 
see a fitness in it, an absolute magnificence of design, 
which attracts our wonder and praise. Look at it in 
the two following aspects, and then judge whether 
we are sporting paradoxes. First, its efficacy as a 
great moral lesson ; secondly, its connection with the 
wonderful display of the divine perfections in the 
plan of salvation by Jesus Christ. 

As to the first, all must acknowledge that no object 
can be conceived more worthy of the Divine Mind 
than providing intelligent agents with a sufficient 
quantity of motive to obedience. It will be allowed, 
also, that the most powerful of all motives are those 
derived from the evils attending disobedience. The 
more impressive the exhibition made on this subject 
by the lawgiver, the more clearly his subjects see that 
sin is an abominable, an infinite evil, — the greater the 
security that they will not yield to its seductions. 
Now, what a terrible exhibition of its workings have 
we in the fact that " by one man sin entered into the 



SERMONS. 



93 



world, and death by sin." The eternal degradation 
and punishment of apostate angels is not to be com- 
pared with it. Each of them fell by his own personal 
delinquency. Sin, under such circumstances, did not 
appear infinitely sinful, because it wrought no effects 
beyond the solitary individual by whom it was com- 
mitted. The penal consequences, being thus bounded, 
could not teach what was so important to be known, 
— the boundless malignity of moral evil. But see 
how the defect is repaired in God's transactions with 
our race. Here we discover that sin is indeed an 
evil thing and bitter. We see that one act of disobe- 
dience can ruin not an individual, but a world, and 
a thousand worlds, if closely enough connected to ad- 
mit a transmission of the poison. We should cer- 
tainly form awful ideas of a drug, if told that one 
grain would not only kill a man, but his posterity to 
the remotest generations. Such is the truth which 
our doctrine teaches ; and who knows but that the 
peculiar way in which we are propagated, by succes- 
sion from a single individual, was ordained with a 
view to this astonishing display ? May not the phys- 
ical law be only the established mode of carrying out 
a far higher idea which occupied the Divine Mind ? 
Thereby a union was formed with the original head, 
which allowed our participation in the consequences 
of his probation, and room was made for a decisive 
experiment how far one unholy action could extend 
its desolations. Tims it is, the world still suffers and 
groans from the taste of a fruit. Six thousand years 
have rolled away ; but the deadly mischief has not 
abated a jot, nor will it as long as sun and moon 



94 



SERMONS. 



endure. What a lesson to the universe ! What 
solemn and salutary thoughts does it excite ! 

Let me suggest a few reflections on the connection 
of our doctrine with that of our redemption by Jesus 
Christ. The relations they sustain to each other are 
so intimate that we do not hesitate to say our fall in 
Adam may be considered one of the most precious 
truths of our religion. It explains, at first sight, the 
mysterious fact that God had mercy on us in pref- 
erence to apostate spirits ; and it casts a flood of light 
on the method he chose to adopt. 

Why did he pass by myriads of superior beings, 
whose original transgression was not greater than 
that of man ? We deny not that there is sovereignty 
in this remarkable discrimination ; but we also say 
there is adorable wisdom and equity. It was fit that, 
if any species of lost creatures become objects of for- 
giving mercy, those should be chosen who had fallen 
not by their own personal transgression, but the dis- 
obedience of another. Justice would be more willing 
to relax her claims in such a contingency ; the ex- 
ample of forgiveness would not operate so injuriously 
on public order ; and the holy inhabitants of heaven 
would not be so much astonished at the exaltation 
of polluted beings to their own felicity. Infidels 
affect to deem the Bible representation very strange 
that the Almighty manifested such sympathy with 
the ills of our muddy planet, but felt no relenting to- 
wards the sons of the morning, who dwelt in his 
immediate presence. Here we have the key. Per- 
haps there is not a district in his extended empire 
under a constitution rendering it so proper to depart 



SERMONS. 



\)5 



from the awful, but necessary maxim, " The soul 
that siuneth, it shall die." There is no danger, 
therefore, that the example here set of pardon will be 
abused, — that any of God's moral servants will natter 
themselves with impunity in wickedness, because 
salvation has been extended to mankind. They see 
that our condition is altogether peculiar; in some 
regards, truly pitiful. How deeply must the thought 
affect them, that when the Infinite One illustrates his 
unbounded mercy in forgiving, he allows it to flow 
out only on a single description of beings, — those 
miserable by imputed crime. 

We observe, further, that our doctrine illustrates 
the method by which the designs of mercy were 
accomplished. " While we were yet without strength, 
in due time Christ died for the ungodly." He be- 
came our sponsor, or representative, assuming our 
penal obligations, by the fulfilment of which we are 
accepted as righteous before the divine tribunal. 
Does this seem an extraordinary transaction ? It 
might be thought so in a world of angels, standing on 
their separate personality. But it is the very tiling for 
us. In this very way the fatal disease entered. " By 
the offence of one, many were dead ; by one, the judg- 
ment came upon all unto condemnation ; " and the 
physician resolved to show his divine skill, by chang- 
ing the poison into a remedy. The representative 
principle was adopted because it already had been 
acted on. God determined to prove that, if it once 
wrought fatal evils, it could be made the most 
effectual instrument of happiness to creation, and of 
glory to his own great name. Out of the lion has 



96 



BERM uXS. 



come forth honey ; the bald spot has been covered 
with a laurel wreath ; the fruit of the forbidden tree 
is turned into the balm of Gilead ; our bane into our 
medicine ; our death into immortal life. It is proba- 
ble that the tempter well knew the connection ex- 
isting between Adam and his future posterity, and 
thought, when the former yielded to his seductions, 
that he had achieved a splendid victory. In imagina- 
tion, he beheld millions and millions prostrate at his 
feet, and under the eternal malediction of high 
Heaven in consequence of this brilliant coup de main. 
But how did God bruise the head of the old 
serpent, — how did he confound him in his own 
counsels, when it appeared that his success opened 
up a way for the most magnificent display of the 
divine perfections that has been ever given to the 
universe, and the restoration of fallen humanity 
to honors far more exalted than had been lost ! The 
poor fool was caught in his own toils, and became the 
principal agent in producing that state of things 
which issued in his total overthrow by the manifesta- 
tion of God's Son in the flesh. 

See, now, what a gain has accrued to the cause of 
good from that constitution which to our poor, lim- 
ited understandings seems so mysterious. Had it not 
been adopted, we have every reason to think that no 
place would have been found for God's last and 
crowning work. The plan of salvation, in which 
more of the divine glory appears than in all other 
works combined, would never have been formed, and 
heaven would have lost its loudest, loftiest anthem : 
" To him who loved us and washed us from our sins 



SERMONS. 



97 



in his own blood, be glory, and honor, and power." 
Here we close, trusting that you have not only 
received an impression favorable to the truth of our 
doctrine, but a deep conviction of its value and im- 
portance. 

You see that we have not been disinterring for 
your inspection a corpse that has been lying six 
thousand years in the grave, an old antediluvian 
fossil, sapless as one of Ezekiel's dry bones, and 
bearing no relation to the system under which we 
live. It is a truth of flesh, blood, and sinews, all 
palpitating with the spirit of life, and immediately 
affecting your Christian privileges and prospects. 
In all essential features the two great economies of 
sin and redemption correspond to each other, and 
illustrate the sublime unity of idea which pervades 
the government of God. The whole of the chapter 
from which our text is taken shows how entirely the 
soul of the great apostle Paul was penetrated with 
this thought. He presses it, iterates and reiterates 
it with endless variety of expression : "By one man 
sin entered into the world." This explains, too, why 
the orthodox, as they are called, have always con- 
tended for our doctrine as a cardinal article of faith. 
They instinctively felt that it was needed to explain 
the deep and universal apostasy of human nature, 
which, wanting this historical support, lay open to 
many perplexing questions. But, more than all, its 
momentous bearing on the only foundation of their 
eternal hope made them jealous over it with a godly 
jealousy. Experience proves that the sensitiveness 
is well grounded ; for the fact admits not a doubt that 

9 



98 



SERMONS. 



the arguments employed against our fall in Adam aim 
a deadly blow at the vicarious sacrifice of Him who 
hung upon the tree. 

Let us improve the subject to the confirmation of 
our faith in the gospel. Let us thankfully accept 
the mediation of that glorious second Adam, who, by 
his spotless merit, restored that which he took not 
away ; " more than repairing the evils occasioned by 
the first." How foolish to spend our precious hours in 
cavilling at the constitution of things, which brought 
disaster, while one is offering itself to our acceptance 
fraught with immortal blessing! You do not like 
your connection with the first parent. Well, who 
asks you to like it ? God does not. As if in kind 
anticipation of your dislike, he has given you another. 
Detach yourself from it this very day, this moment. 
Cut loose from that barren stock, whose branches 
yield only thorns and briars, and be united to the 
living vine. Of the tree of knowledge of good and 
evil you have had more than enough. " Behold the 
tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God, 
bearing all manner of precious fruits, and whose 
leaves are for the healing of the nations." 



The Blessing obtained by Fraud. 



V. 



THE BLESSING OBTAINED BY FRAUD. 



Genesis 27 : 35. J^ni) \z saib, broi^r ram* hsxt\ sabiiltg, anir Jml^r 
taken afoag ifcg ^lessiag. 



N many parts of biblical history, you perceive 
that the sacred penman contents himself with 
relating facts, unaccompanied by any com- 
mentary of his own ; in this respect differing 
from the modern historian, who usually expresses 
his judgment on the record, intersperses reflections, 
moral, philosophical, or political, and thus succeeds in 
displaying himself as well as his subject. This almost 
bald simplicity of the ancient writers may be attended 
with either good or evil results. The good are these, 
— that we are led to think out the matter for our- 
selves, and are compelled, in so doing, to increase 
the diligence and accuracy of our examination. More 
is left to our own intelligence, which by this exercise 
is sharpened and invigorated. An evil consequence 
is the danger of approving the actions of good men 
in every case where the historian has not marked 
them with an express and emphatic note of disap- 
probation. 

The paragraph just read, narrating how Jacob ob- 
tained the blessing by fraud and subtilty from his 
father, is a striking instance of this. No censure is 

9* 



102 



SERM ONS. 



passed upon it by the inspired historian, and an in- 
advertent reader might view it only in the light of a 
juvenile prank, displaying considerable ingenuity of 
contrivance and dexterity of execution. But a little 
close attention will correct the idea. The writer 
does not stop to descant on the guilt of Jacob, or 
treat the reader with sage moralities. Yet the subse- 
quent history plainly discovers a just Providence pun- 
ishing his sin, and reads to us a lesson as impressive 
as if the words were written at the close of every 
sentence, " See the baneful effects of fraud and false- 
hood." Let us attend to the story with a view of 
gathering up some of its practical teachings. 

We find, in the twenty -fifth chapter of Genesis, that 
Esau and Jacob were twin-brothers, concerning whom, 
in answer to the inquiries of Rebecca, their mother, God 
declared that " the elder should serve the younger 
which was remarkably fulfilled in their posterity, 
many years after. Mark here, that it may please 
God to announce, beforehand, events which are 
locked up in the mysterious future ; but it must not 
therefore please us to procure by crooked and im- 
proper means the accomplishment of the oracle. He 
does not give prophecy as a chart for direction, — in 
other words, as a rule of monarch conduct. His pur- 
poses shall be accomplished in his own time and 
manner. But this is Ms own affair. He addresses 
us in one unvarying strain, " What doth the Lord 
thy God require of thee, but to do justly, love mercy, 
and to walk humbly with thy God ? " 

As the brothers grew up, we read that Esau was a 
skilful hunter — a man of the field ; but that Jacob 



SERMONS. 



103 



was a plain man, that is, of a quiet and domestic 
turn, dwelling in tents. Isaac, it is further narrated 
by the historian, in his beautiful, naive, and simple 
way, " loved Esau because he did eat of his venison ; 
but Rebecca loved Jacob." Most true is it, that the 
foundation of the most serious errors in life are often 
laid at a very early period. "The entire man," as a 
great writer observes (Tocqueville) , " is to be seen 
in the cradle of the child." Parents are sadly dis- 
appointed in their offspring, and troubled till their 
dying day, through a cause which they little suspect. 
They complain of their children, when perhaps the 
children may have far more reason to complain of 
them. They have indulged an early partiality, based 
on no just reasons, which has been productive, on 
each side, of the worst effects. There is but one 
true ground of preference with respect to children, 
namely, that of real moral worth. Isaac and Re- 
becca thought, or at least acted, otherwise. Much 
of their unhappiness in the world, and the family dis- 
cord which produced it, were referable to foolish pref- 
erences founded on points of difference almost ridicu- 
lously trifling. Isaac loved Esau because he had a 
sweet tooth to Esau's savory game ; Rebecca, Jacob, 
because his temper and habits led him to be much 
with her in the house. The one was mother's pet ; 
the other, father's darling. When will good men 
and women learn to watch their prejudices, their 
caprices, and their passions ? 

We approach, now, a transaction circumstantially 
related in the chapter under our notice. Jacob 
comes " with subtilty " and obtains the blessing from 



104 



SERMONS. 



Esau. The pious father was at this time far ad- 
vanced in life, heing more than a hundred years old, 
and his eyes were dim so that he could not see. Un- 
certain how soon his death might take place, he 
determined on giving his solemn and prophetic bless- 
ing to the eldest son. His wife, — a woman of re- 
markable shrewdness, abounding, if not in wisdom, 
at least in mother-wit, and, as is usual with such, 
was always about, — hears him express his intention, 
and all her feelings in behalf of mother's own boy 
are called forth with painful intensity. Hitherto her 
partiality had, we may suppose, displayed itself in 
trifles, though often producing mischief. Now, how- 
ever, when a special temptation occurred, — a crisis, 
as she thought, either for good or evil in his destiny, 
— she proceeds to work out a favorable issue at 
the expense of truth, justice, honor, and common 
honesty. We are to judge of the evil of our pas- 
sions, not by the effects they have actually produced 
at ordinary times, but by those which may be de- 
veloped. The cockatrice in Rebecca's bosom began 
now to hatch an egg of respectable dimensions. It 
was obviously her duty to leave in the hands of the 
great Disposer of events the fulfilment of his own 
pledges. But she persuaded herself that the decisive 
hour was come. Now or never. In half an hour 
Isaac would give the blessing to that ungainly red- 
beard, who would never sit with her in the house, 
and poor, dear, dutiful Jacob would be nowhere. 
What shall she do ? Xot a moment must be lost. 
The divine purpose to give the latter superiority 
would, she thought, excuse a certain degree of 



SERMONS. 



105 



finesse. She meant to further the scheme of Provi- 
dence, to help the Lord out of a serious nonplus and 
quandary. But she forgot that the divine intentions 
are no criterion of moral obligation, and that God 
may as severely punish the man who executes, as the 
man who opposes his will, if each is alike acting in 
his own spirit, and pursuing his own ends. There 
is something truly curious in this exemplification at 
so early a period of the " manifest-destiny " scheme 
of morality, which has wrought so much evil in 
society. 

To resume the narrative : our heroine, having 
formed her plan, imparts it to Jacob. Naturally, like 
an affectionate child, he falls in with it. Scruples 
would indeed obtrude at the first presentation of the 
infamous project ; but interest, that golden bribe, 
whose seductions so few withstand, would plead irre- 
sistibly on the other side of the question. How awfully 
does selfish greed pervert the judgment, and palliate 
the worst actions ! His scruples not being obviated 
at once, his mother is not afraid to urge him on by 
a speech of singularly bold profanity : " Upon me be 
the curse, my son, only obey my voice." What a 
position this for a mother ! We see her in circum- 
stances humiliating indeed ! Playing devil to her 
own child ; urging him to a vile fraud on his dying 
father and perfidy to his brother, and using all her 
maternal authority to ensure compliance : " Upon 
me he the curse" She little thought of the meaning 
in these awful words at the time ; but in due season 
it was effectually brought home to her. Cursing is a 
poor trade at best, and the dealer in it seldom thrives, 



106 



S EMMONS. 



whether it is directed against others or himself. 
Usually, like the chickens, it comes home to roost. 
Prepared by maternal instruction, he goes in, dis- 
guised, to his father. Here, we soon discover that 
sins are seldom solitary, and one transgression, by 
a natural propagative virtue, begets a whole family. 
He adds hypocrisy to fraud, and palpable lying to 
deceit. " How," asked the old man, " is it that thou 
hast found the venison so quickly ? " and Jacob said, 
" Because the Lord thy God brought it to me." How 
shocking does wickedness appear arrayed in the 
garb, and using the language, of religion ! The 
young villain is not satisfied with casting dirt on 
the gray hairs of his earthly parent, but he must 
lie, unblushingly, to his Father in heaven. He 
carries through the business with a great display of 
piety, — looking devoutly up to the skies, and prais- 
ing the Lord for his goodness in sending him a fine, 
noble deer so quickly. Oh, the contemptible sneak 
toward a poor, blind old man ; but impudent, brazen- 
faced bully to his God ! It may be thought strange 
that his fraud should be accompanied with so need- 
less an aggravation as amounted to absolute blas- 
phemy. But it is not unnatural. When a man has 
fairly made up his mind to play the knave, he often 
finds it quite convenient to play the blasphemer also ; 
endeavoring, by solemn grimace and a hypocritical 
parade of devout words, to inspire confidence. Hence 
the remark frequently made, and containing some 
truth, that there are persons against whom we should 
never be so carefully on our guard, as when they 
begin to look sentimental, and to talk religion. The 



SERMONS. 



107 



principal use these people make of the Almighty is 
to cheat by him. 

Hastening to the conclusion, without enlarging on 
the dexterity with which the smooth-skinned young 
impostor counterfeited his brother's natural shag, we 
find the whole scheme succeeding to a marvel. De- 
ceit, falsehood, and profanity obtained the blessing. 
But short is the triumph of injustice. While the 
patriarch's benediction was yet sounding in Jacob's 
ear, the fear of the approach of Esau, the stings of 
a guilty conscience, and the apprehension of conse- 
quences taught him how like a fool he had acted, with 
all his scheming and worldly shrewdness. He, more- 
over, soon discovers that his success will embitter 
not only the whole of his own life, but that of his 
parents. The contriver of the fraud was deprived of 
her favorite child for the remainder of her days. 
She never saw him again ! Instead of being the stay 
and consolation of her declining years, he was a 
stranger in a foreign land, banished from home by 
means of an act of sin. How unblessed the blessing 
which it cost so much to obtain ! Instead of the 
elder serving the younger, the latter is a poor, wan- 
dering exile, in constant terror of his brother. In 
all places, and at every moment, he feared to en- 
counter him ; and not only so, but at every step he 
is pursued by the retributive justice of Providence. 
Mark this : first, he who had imposed upon his 
father, was himself imposed upon by his uncle La- 
ban in the circumstances of his marriage. Next, 
the jealousies and variance of his wives, Leah and 
Rachel, with their eternal jangles, must have re- 



108 



SERMONS. 



minded him forcibly of his own want of brotherly 
affection. In addition, continual feuds prevailed 
among his children ; and he who was most loved 
by the father, was hated by the rest. At last, he 
was the dupe of an imposture more successful than 
his own. Joseph, his beloved, was sold by his brethren 
into bondage, and reported to be slain by a wild 
beast. When, at a later period, he found out the 
trick — oh ! did he not think of the venison and the 
unfortunate Esau ? In a word, his life was one long 
misfortune, an almost unvarying scene of domestic 
trouble and vexation, which had their origin, either 
directly or indirectly, in this most unhappy step. At 
the close of life, he is heard exclaiming : " Few and 
evil have been my days," and he might have added 
" I am a melancholy example of deviating in life's 
early morning from the path of simplicity and virtue." 

On the history brought under review, we offer the 
following reflections : — 

1. Many of the most serious evils in life must 
be traced to parental mismanagement. This topic 
has been already alluded to ; but it deserves more 
formal notice, because it is not sufficiently appre- 
ciated. There are apparently so many ways of ex- 
plaining the sins and unhappiness which prevail, 
without one's obtruding himself into the domestic 
circle in search of causes, that we are apt practically 
to ignore its agency in the formation of either 
worthy or unworthy character ; and yet, slight re- 
flection will convince us that the mightiest of all 
engines, both for good and evil, is at the hearthstone. 
In truth, the responsibility of parents is immense, 



SERMONS. 



109 



and not to be estimated. On their conduct and ex- 
ample, we do not scruple to affirm, is depending, 
in a good degree, the destiny of all committed to 
their charge. None of us need to be reminded of 
two venerable maxims constantly quoted, even by 
those who can quote nothing else, " The child is 
father of the man," and "Just as the twig is bent, 
the tree's inclined." The habits engendered in in- 
fancy and youth, are far the most permanent, and 
carried from the nursery into active life. It is then 
only, if formed badly, we see the mischief that has 
been done. Now, if parents, instead of directing 
their endeavors to root out the germs of vice and 
misery, so thickly planted in the heart as if by the 
hand of nature, rather make it a business to cultivate 
and mature them, turning the family bosom into 
a hot-bed for the ignoble purpose ; — are they not 
acting the part of murderers before God, chargeable 
for all the disorder and wretchedness which are 
the consequence ? Let me give a specification or two. 

I suppose one of you to be the father of a numer- 
ous family ; unhappily, you have fixed special re- 
gard on a certain member of it, who, in consequence, 
grows up pampered with vanity and self-conceit, 
is haughty to his equals, arrogant to his inferiors 
as to social position, and odious to all with whom 
he has intercourse, by his intolerable egotism. But 
are not these dispositions the source of most of the 
unhappiness that prevails in the world ? and can you 
expect that, after having made it your study to plant 
them firm and deep in the heart of the boy, they will 
cease to trouble the man, and make him a trouble 
10 



110 



SERMON S. 



and pest to others ? Will the pettishness, insolence, 
revengeful temper, selfishness, and ungovernable will, 
which your constant indulgence has nurtured, take 
wings and fly away at the moment he leaves the 
paternal mansion ? If you think so, you know too 
little to be a parent. The last occupation you are 
fit for is begetting sons and daughters. His bad 
propensities will continue with him as sure as there 
is a God in heaven. He, whom you made vain, un- 
feeling, passionate, overbearing, under your roof, 
will be vain, unfeeling, passionate, and overbearing 
under all other roofs; and before you die you may 
hear him curse you for making his coffin ; or, possibly, 
your system of favoritism may operate exactly as 
it did in the case of Isaac and Rebecca, — produc- 
ing jealousy, and contention among your children : 
J acob opposing himself to Esau by cunning, backed 
by the strong head-piece of his mother, and Esau 
opposing himself to Jacob by superior strength, 
receiving what assistance could be rendered from his 
honest, but weak old father. Thus, training them 
up to savageness and contempt for the tenderest 
bonds, I ask again, do you think that when fairly 
launched on the tide of life all this will be left 
behind, and they will start up models of peaceable- 
ness, meekness, and kind affection in their inter- 
course with those about them ? It cannot be. You 
have sowed seeds which cannot be eradicated. If 
they do not ripen into a harvest of sin and suffering, 
thank not yourself, but the restraining grace of God. 

I have dwelt principally on these suppositions, — on 
the one infirmity of parental favoritism, — because it 



SERMONS. 



Ill 



is the prominent feature of the case narrated in our 
text. But there are legions of others which have a 
fatal influence on the destiny of children. Take heed, 
then, how you discharge the important obligation 
resting on you as heads of families. The life of 
your children is bound up in you. God only knows 
what may be the effect of a single error ! 

2. This history calls our attention to the important 
maxim, that no end, however good, will sanction bad 
ways of accomplishing it. Jacob had the fullest 
reason to believe that God had ordained him heir of 
the prophetic benediction. He did not sin in desiring 
that the decree should be fulfilled, nor would he 
have sinned in endeavoring to compass the fulfil- 
ment, if he had done so in an honorable and pious 
manner. But, unhappily, he persuaded himself, as I 
have said, that the decree was the rule of his duty, 
and authorized any measures that would prove suc- 
cessful. The holy God, in no case, permits his 
creatures to trespass on the eternal canons he has 
given them for their direction. He may, oftentimes, 
from sin and disobedience, raise to himself a revenue 
of praise, procuring invaluable benefits to the church 
and the world. But this is no justification of the 
instrument. The murder of Jesus conferred the 
most illustrious benefit on the world that the world 
has ever received. But this did not excuse the 
wretches by whom the bloody tragedy was enacted. 
We have a law, holy, just, and good ; and rigid 
obedience to this is both our duty and our interest. 
The man who commits an outrage on it, under pre- 
tence of good intentions, pollutes himself with a 



112 



SZRJ10NS. 



double guilt. First, he breaks the rule of life, and, 
secondly, he adds to this the foul crime of hypocrisy 
and profanation in holy things. Were I called to point 
out the greatest abomination, as well as meanness, 
that has ever disgraced civilization and nominal 
Christianity, I would, unquestionably, name that 
system of pious frauds, as they were called, which 
was adopted in the early times of the church, and is 
not yet entirely extinct. 

I am aware that certain cases are supposed, by 
a certain class of ethical writers, not remarkable for 
the strictness of their principles, with the view of 
showing that it is sometimes lawful to commit un- 
lawful deeds in consideration of the end. Thus, we 
may sometimes tell a lie : to the madman, for in- 
stance, in order to his preservation; to the robber, 
who has received your promise that on condition 
of being released, you will transmit a sum of 
money ; to a man pursuing with deadly intent an 
enemy, that he may be put on a false scent, and 
not discover his victim, etc. See, now, what these 
casuists do. To establish a foul and most pernicious 
principle, which, in its practical working, overturns 
the whole structure of moral obligation, they bring up 
certain extreme suppositions, which, like earthquakes, 
deluges, and volcanic eruptions, are not realized 
thrice in a generation, or perhaps a century. In this 
way, there is no misconduct so vile that it cannot be 
glozed over by a third-rate advocate. Rapine, mur- 
der, treason, perjury, — everything, in short, that ex- 
cites horror in a virtuous mind, — can be, and has 
been transformed by the villanous plea of necessity into 



SERMONS. 



113 



positive virtues ; or, at least, harmless peccadilloes. 
Take an example out of modern history. When 
Napoleon Bonaparte carried on his campaigns in 
Egypt, he took the city of Jaffa, — the garrison of 
Turks, who had defended it (nearly five thousand in 
number) , surrendering their arms on the express con- 
dition, formally accepted, of receiving quarter and 
good treatment. Napoleon's army was not at that 
time very amply provisioned, though not suffering. 
It was not thought convenient to feed so many useless 
mouths, nor was it deemed wise to let the poor 
wretches run. For these reasons he determined, four 
days after they were taken, and when the heated 
blood of his soldiers had become perfectly cool, to 
massacre them all ; and the thing was done. Nearly 
five thousand helpless prisoners were, on the fifth 
morning, taken out into the field and slaughtered as 
they stood, by volleys of musketry, continued for 
three hours, until not one was left alive. Every man 
was basely, brutally, devilishly murdered,— resistance 
being impossible, because, relying on Christian honor, 
they had not only given up their arms, but sub- 
mitted, not dreaming of danger, to have their hands 
confined with ropes behind their backs. Yet, such is 
the besotting influence of hero-worship on weak 
minds, that a reverend scribbler, in one of our fash- 
ionable magazines, came out not long since, the un- 
blushing justifier of the whole transaction, — denying 
not one of the facts, but pathetically appealing to the 
ugly gash which five thousand live Turks would have 
made in the Frenchmen's rations. I must observe, 

however, that, in this horrible atrocity, there was 
10* 



114 



SEEM ON S. 



exhibited no peculiar, and hitherto unknown principle 
of evil. If necessity justifies fraud and falsehood, or 
any other violation of the rule of right, it may be 
adduced to varnish over the infernal butchery of 
Jaffa. Let us spit upon such Jesuitical morality. 
Let us firmly believe that no plea will hold valid 
before the tribunal for overstepping the line of recti- 
tude ; and as to the cases of imagined exception, let 
us hope that a benignant Providence will never ex- 
pose us to the fatal necessity of sinning. If it is 
doomed that such an evil day shall come (the most 
unlikely of all events), let us wait for it, and not 
establish beforehand an ungodly casuistry. If any 
still urge that our doctrine, though a noble one, 
does not make sufficient provision against the possi- 
bility of finding ourselves, some unlucky morning, 
in a tight place, I reply as before, you have no 
more right to calculate on one of these tight places 
and unlucky mornings, than the girl found by her 
mother sobbing in an agony of distress at the thought 
of the baby's climbing up into the heated oven ; in 
which case, what should she do to anticipate such 
an occurrence ? " Sufficient for the day is the evil 
thereof," especially as God's providence is so ar- 
ranged, that the evil day seldom comes. But should 
it come ? Well, all we say is, that our Father is 
merciful. In the hour of extremity, when an 
avalanche of calamity is rushing, thundering down 
upon us which we can escape only by turning a cor- 
ner, — in other words, by fraud, or some other tamper- 
ing with the canons of eternal truth, — he will doubt- 
less make due allowance for the infirmity of his 



SERMONS. 



115 



creature. There are moral tornadoes which carry a 
man fairly off his feet, in the midst of which law is 
silent, because she knows that mortal strength is 
unable to withstand them. But shame on those who 
turn exceptions into rules, and, in view of such 
remote probabilities, familiarize their minds with the 
abominable maxim of doing evil that good may come. 
The apostle cries more than " shame " upon them ; 
he says, that " their damnation is just." 

3. Our history illustrates the prolific nature of sin. 
Jacob, when he approached his father, intended to 
play dummy, and merely stand up in the disguise 
of Esau. But he is not let off so easily ; he soon 
finds that he has placed himself in a situation where 
sin must be added to sin, lie to lie, and the whole 
crowned with the most shocking profanity. Thus it 
usually happens. The commission of one crime makes 
another necessary in order to supply what is lacking 
in the first. Thus the evil-doer finds himself by one 
deviation from duty drawn into more than he ever 
thought of. There is an old adage to this purport, 
that misfortunes never come alone ; but it holds much 
more true of sins. They are a needy and numerous 
family. Open the heart to one of them : they will 
gradually introduce each other till nearly all obtain 
the right of citizenship. Look at that unfortunate 
creature with glass in hand. He thinks only of for- 
getting his cares and enjoying with a few comrades an 
hour of harmless glee. But does he look forward to 
the possible issue ? Does he know what secrets he 
may betray ; in what sensual abominations he may 
fall ; what blasphemies he may belch ; into what 



116 



SERMONS. 



quarrels he may be hurried, bringing the most awful 
consequences upon himself and others ? Does he 
know that when, on the next morning he awakes from 
his orgies, he will find at his side a dead wife and 
child, perhaps, victims to the madness that had come 
over him, — not by one of those mysterious dispensa- 
tions which excite not less our pity than our horror, 
because independent of human will, — but by his own 
voluntary agency ? 

Or take the murderer on the highway. First, he 
mingled with light and riotous company. Squander- 
ing his resources, he commenced secret encroachments 
on the property of others. Detected here, he robs, 
and robbery ends in blood. Yiew him just before this 
dreadful consummation. Perhaps, on the morning of 
the day when he committed it, the idea of such a deed 
never entered his heart. Pecuniary embarrassment 
induces him to make an essay of force upon a trav- 
eller's purse. He goes out for the purpose, designing 
only to frighten the man a little, and return with his 
booty to lead a reputable life. He has hardly made 
up his mind to put a bullet in the pistol, but on the 
whole thinks it best. Oh, for a warning voice to 
point out the horror that awaits him, — to tell him how 
much deeper than he dreams, he is going to plunge 
into a hell of crime. Unexpected resistance exas- 
perates his passions, takes away his self-command, 
blinds to consequences, and before he is aware — 
click — the deed is done. He is a murderer ! 

We have probably read the monkish legend of 
Satan's appearing to a pious hermit whom he had 
long tormented with his fiery darts of temptation, 



SERMONS. 



117 



and promising that if he would consent to perpetrate 
one single offence, which he would name, he would 
never trouble him more. The hermit agreed to the 
bargain, and option was given him of committing the 
sin of murder, adultery, or drunkenness. He chose , 
the latter, considering drunkenness the most venial. 
But mark the issue ! When that sin was upon him, 
he perpetrated both the others ! This little story has a 
profound significance. It illustrates the progressive 
and self-multiplying nature of transgression. Think 
you that before the commission of those enormous 
frauds which we read of so often in the public prints, 
our ears tingling during the perusal, that no previous 
steps had been taken which, by an almost fatal neces- 
sity, determined the final catastrophe ? We know the 
contrary. We know that the first acts of peculation 
were so slight, that it needed some sternness to pass 
a vehement censure on them. Ah ! had they only 
stopped there, we are ready in our good nature to ex- 
claim, and would exclaim (if reflection did not step 
in and break off our pretty sentence short in the mid- 
dle), by reminding us that they could not stop more 
than Jacob in the midst of his lying. Having taken 
the slide they were bound for the bottom. Fraud must 
be covered over by fraud. Forgery must be protected 
by endless repetition, till some day their whole struc- 
ture of villany explodes at once, and they are driven 
with execration from the society of men. So true is 
the proverb, " It is the first step that costs." Could 
we accurately trace the genealogy of events, we should 
often discover that the convicted felon's miserable 
fate has its origin, not so much in the enormity which 



118 



SERMONS. 



has been detected and excites universal detestation, as 
in the paltry shilling which, years before, when a 
simple boy, he had niched from his employer's till. 

4. And this leads me to remark that the sins of 
youth have often a long and lasting influence. Jacob, 
when he wronged his father and brother, was a lad 
not arrived at years of maturity. His sin, too, was 
pardoned, and doubtless repented of with bitter tears. 
Yet it haunted him till his dying day. And thus 
many excellent men, like Peter, David, and Paul, 
have had their happiest hours darkened by some ab- 
sorbing and harrowing reminiscence. Let the 
thought solemnly remind the young to avoid a false 
step in the early stage of life's perilous journey. 
The season is a peculiarly critical one. Character 
is now forming for time and eternity, and the ele- 
ments of happiness and misery are fast collect- 
ing. You cannot commit a crime with impunity 
though you stand alone in the middle of the Atlantic 
Ocean. God shall remember it. You shall remem- 
ber it. Yes, it shall be written deep in the conscience, 
and occasion unspeakable sorrow at a future period. 
Oh, the agony with which that prayer of the Psalmist 
is often uttered by the man of gray hairs, " Lord, 
pardon the sins of my youth ! " Be wise, then, and 
so fill up the hours of the morning which you now 
enjoy, that in the night of old age your blunted sensi- 
bilities may be revived by the sweet fragrance of 
the flowers of memory culled from the distant past, 
and, looking back with calm serenity, you may say, " I 
have fought a good fight." 

Let us, in the last place, consider our text as an 



SERMONS. 



119 



instructive commentary on the frailties and imper- 
fections of the truly pious. God is sometimes pleased 
to withdraw from them his supporting hand, and 
when he does, they soon let the church and the world 
know it, — giving sad evidences of their weakness, and 
proving that nothing made them to differ from others 
but sovereign grace. Let us be taught by such ex- 
amples to be clothed with humility, to distrust our- 
selves ; and, when we stand most firmly, to take heed 
lest we fall most grievously. You are confident, 
you say, that you could not be guilty of such mean- 
ness, impiety, and falsehood. But are you confident ? 
Are you quite certain, that, if your position and cir- 
cumstances were so changed as to offer strong tempta- 
tion, you would hold fast your integrity ? At all 
events, it is best to be vigilant and modest. Even 
were you stronger than you think yourself, your true 
safety is not there, but in commending yourself to 
God and the word of his grace. 



Fretfulness. 



VI. 



FRETFULNESS. 



Psalms 37 : 8. Jxet not %stlf. 



PROPOSE to attack, from these words of the 
Psalmist, a disposition, which no one of sound 
mind will pretend to justify, but which few 
consider as positively vicious. The most of 
persons allow it to be an imperfection, a trait of 
character incapable of exciting admiration or love. 
But they have too much charity for infirm human 
nature, to bestow a harsher epithet on one of its 
most excusable weaknesses. We confess we are in 
the habit of viewing it in a different light, — as a 
vice fatal to happiness, dishonoring to that God who 
giveth us all things richly to enjoy, and forbidden by 
the express letter of revelation, as well as the whole 
spirit of true religion. 

The Psalmist, indeed, employs the words of our 
text only in reference to a particular form of this 
vice, for the whole passage reads, " Fret not thyself 
because of the ungodly." But our observations shall 
relate to fretfulness in general. We shall first de- 
scribe this unhappy temper ; and, secondly, offer 
some considerations tending to guard you against 
its indulgence. 



124 



SZRJfONS. 



We are aware there are some, who, possessing very 
strict and delicate notions on the subject of sermon- 
izing, will hardly allow discourses, like that which is 
to follow, the name of sermons at all. It is of very 
trifling consequence, however, by what name my re- 
marks are called, provided they do any of you good. 
For my part, I have never been able to discover either 
sense or scripture in banishing morals from the pul- 
pit ; nor, after my best endeavors, can I frame a better 
definition of what is called a sermon than this, — a dis- 
course calculated to make men wiser and better. 

The temper we speak of is that which the evils 
of life are often found to produce, especially in per- 
sons whose sensibilities are not under the control 
of a sound judgment. It is a jaundice of the soul, in 
which its unhappy subject receives enjoyment from 
nothing, and extracts wretchedness from everything 
beneath the sun ; clothing the loveliest objects of 
creation with a dismal, sick-chamber gloom. He is 
never satisfied ; and, as if the cup of human suffer- 
ing was not sufficiently full, goes through the world 
on a voyage of discovery for new ingredients to add 
to the bitterness and abundance of its contents. 

With regard to the evils and inconveniences of life 
the wise man reasons thus : " Why should I allow my- 
self to be annoyed by them, when I see that I am but a 
partner in that common inheritance which has descend- 
ed to the human family ? Let me patiently endure ; let 
me make the best of what I cannot remedy, and obtain 
a full compensation by improving those innumerable 
sources of felicity that a benevolent Deity hath opened 
up to me in this wilderness. In short, let me, like the 



SERMONS. 



125 



sun-dial, count the hours that shine, leaving the record 
of nights, and dark, dismal days to those who have a 
taste for such observations." But not so our melan- 
choly brother, who thinks he does well to be angry. 
He counts only evils, and makes little or no distinc- 
tion between them : it matters not how great or 
small, — whether peculiar to himself, or common to 
man. He never asks whether they are not fairly out- 
balanced by his resources of enjoyment, but gives 
himself up to an abject melancholy, venting his bitter 
bile in a constant flow of murmurs and groans. 

But that our illustrations may be more definite, 
let us view this unworthy temper in some of its most 
common modifications. 

First, we shall invite your notice to the peevish 
Christian. That the ways of true religion are ways 
of pleasantness, is a fact confirmed by the experience 
of every good man. It is also true, however, that it 
entails trials which make considerable demand on his 
powers of endurance as well as active courage. It 
is not always the Christian enjoys the light of his 
Father's countenance. He is harassed by a law in 
his members warring against the law of his mind, and 
bringing him in subjection to the law of sin ; and 
often tears run down his cheeks because men keep 
not the commandments of his God. To these, and 
all other sorrows connected with his Christian pro- 
fession, it is his right, his duty to feel tenderly alive. 
The religion of the Lord J esus Christ has nothing in 
common with the fantastic dogmas of stoicism. But 
it too often happens that sensibility is unduly ex- 
cited, and religious grief degenerates into religious 
11* 



126 



SERMONS. 



fretfulness. Under its dark shadow he is found 
writing bitter things against himself without a cause. 
Forgetting, for example, that true religion attains its 
perfection in the soul by a gradual process, by growth 
and development, not by sudden projection, he mur- 
murs because he does not make the rapid advance- 
ment he expected ; because corruption still remains 
powerful, and the enemies of his peace have yielded 
so little ground after years of conflict. Not seldom 
does he give the lie to all the evidences of his salva- 
tion ; or, if kept from this folly, he finds it exceed- 
ingly difficult to repel the thought that God is acting 
toward him with strange rigor. 

There is another class of Christians whose morbid 
irritability fixes on those around them. They are 
quite content with their own spiritual attainments, 
but very much displeased with those of every one 
else. All things are going wrong. The love of many, 
on whom they built high hopes, is waxing cold ; no 
blessing attends the administration of divine ordi- 
nances ; church-discipline is sadly neglected ; the 
minister does not visit, or visits too much. In short, 
there are griefs and grievances so numerous that it 
would require an age to recount them. Now, we 
readily grant that such things are real and substan- 
tial grounds of lamentation. But this says nothing 
to justify the morose temper we are describing. No 
Christian has a right to brood over the evils of the 
church as if all was lost, and Christ had gone back 
to his grave. Depend upon it, whenever you see one 
thus engaged ; one always presenting the dark side 
of the picture, turning away his eyes from everything 



SERMONS. 



127 



that is favorable and promising, that you may put 
him down as a man who, under pretence of laying to 
heart the desolations of Zion, is feeding his own 
spleen ! 

The state of things in the world at large, supplies 
yet more abundant aliment to the religious tempera- 
ment we speak of. It is a plain case that sin has 
caused innumerable disorders, which we are wit- 
nessing and feeling every hour. We live in an age 
of gold doubtless ; but, also, of iron, when right is 
invaded, innocence oppressed, rapine and violence 
go unpunished, and the wicked " nourish as a green 
bay tree." Yonder is a virtuous mechanic, going to 
his humble cot, after a long day of exhausting toil, 
with a pittance scarce sufficient to procure a mouth- 
ful of bread for each of his starving offspring ; before 
him, lolling in his splendid chariot, a wretch who 
never shed a tear, who has fattened on the oppres- 
sion of the fatherless and the widow, who has de- 
frauded every man who trusted either in his honor 
or his oath. This wretch, this worse than hyena of 
the desert, is perhaps at the head of the commercial 
world, and is looked up to with almost universal 
homage and respect. Such spectacles often occur. 
With respect to them, we are called to exercise the 
virtue of patient acquiescence, believing that, though 
the ways of Providence are a mystery, at present un- 
fathomable, yet a time shall come, when his right- 
eousness shall be vindicated to the confusion of the 
ungodly, and complete satisfaction of all the good. 
What, though there are enemies in the world of truth 
and righteousness, numerous as the sand of the sea, 



128 



SERMONU. 



and their cause fearfully prosperous ? God reigns. 
We know that the issue will be glorious ; that the 
destiny of his adversaries is as portentous as their 
wickedness. Let them enjoy their day ! Methinks a 
generous enemy would be rather pleased than other- 
wise that the poor devils had a little rope previous 
to their final and eternal overthrow. 

But quite a different view of the subject is taken 
by the man we are describing. Forgetting his entire 
incompetence to sit in judgment on the deep things 
of the incomprehensible Supreme, he goes into 
spasms of indignation, accuses Providence, and some- 
times almost questions whether there be a God who 
governs the world at all. Instead of learning from 
present obliquities to anticipate, with serene compos- 
ure, a day of making straight, the only use he makes 
of them is to weaken his sense of a Divine Presence 
in the earth, and cherish a habit of doubting and 
complaining which gives a sombre aspect to the 
whole of his religion. He has no heart or leisure to 
act out holy love to his God and Saviour, for he is 
eternally brooding over the progress of Popery. It 
is no time to feast on the blessed promises of the gos- 
pel, when errors of every kind, — Infidelity, Roman- 
ism, Slaveholding, Red Democracy, Despotism, German 
Transcendentalism, Nebraska bills, etc., etc., — are 
coming in like a flood, threatening to bring back pri- 
meval chaos. How take comfort, when, at the rate at 
which things are going on, the world must surely come 
to an end in less than half a century ? This is the kind of 
Christian who impresses the children of the world with 
the idea that Christianity is a sour, melancholy thing. 



SERM ONS. 



129 



They see him constantly hanging his head like a bul- 
rush ; when they hear him, nothing meets the ear but 
the moaning of a spirit fretting at itself and all around ; 
and they conclude that he is a lineal descendant of 
that weeping philosopher of old, who went up and 
down through Greece, painting in most horrid colors 
the miseries of life, that he might drive his hearers 
to cut their throats, or swallow poison in despair. 

Let us now come to the domestic circle. It is evi- 
dent that in the best ordered families there must 
occur, from time to time, incidents of a vexatious 
character, which are so many calls to the exer- 
cise of patience. This, however, is not considered 
by a certain class of persons, who seem to take a 
perfect delight in registering every misconduct, 
quarrelling about the veriest trifles, and pouring 
forth the most heart-rending complaints on what 
merited only a smile, or, at the worst, a mild rebuke. 
Their servants are the most stupid and lazy in the 
world. So wretchedly managed is the culinary de- 
partment that scarcely once a month do they sit 
down to a decent meal : the bread is always dough ; 
the milk is sour, — everything, in fact, is precisely 
what it ought not to be ; and wife, domestics, yea, 
even the poor, purring animal at the fireside, spite 
of its sleepy and harmless look, are in a black 
conspiracy against the unhappy man's peace. No 
wonder, then, that, in self-defence, he conspires 
against theirs ! 

Another form of the vice we are describing is that 
arising from temporal condition. It has pleased God 
to establish among men a great variety in outward 



130 



SERMONS 



circumstances. Some are rich, some are poor ; some 
are exalted, some comparatively debased. Yet, after 
all, we may safely affirm that the capabilities of sub- 
stantial happiness are pretty nearly equal among all 
classes. The only difficulty lies in men's indisposi- 
tion to improve their advantages — in their strange 
proneness to reject the enjoyment that is within 
their reach. The true reason of the poor man's 
misery is the bitterness of his own spirit, and this 
would make him equally miserable were he possessor 
of thousands. We see this exemplified every day. 
Take, for instance, a man of an irritable and peevish 
temperament, and mark him in his progress from 
penury to affluence. Is there the least improvement 
in his feelings ? Is he not just as wretched on 
the day of retiring from the pursuit, with a large 
and unincumbered fortune, as when he commenced 
his career ? Yes. He is the same complaining 
being he ever was ; and all the showers of Provi- 
dential bounty have not smoothed a single wrinkle 
on his brow. When in the depths of poverty, he 
tormented himself because he was not rich ; when 
rich, he mourns that he is not richer ; and thus 
always finds something in his condition to justify 
the complaint of being one of the most miserable of 
men ; and so he is, and so he richly deserves to 
be, — for no man can seek after hidden treasure more 
earnestly than he seeks after ways and means to 
make himself uncomfortable. 

The next form of the vice under consideration is to 
be dealt with much more tenderly, — the fretfulness of 
infirmity and old age. Such is the intimate connection 



SERMONS. 



131 



between soul and body, that disorder in the one dis- 
turbs the health and serenity of the other. This is 
especially the case with those whose minds are natu- 
rally weak and susceptible, and who, while blessed 
with health, provided no resources of enjoyment 
independent of things merely outward. Chastened 
with pain on their bed, their life abhorreth bread, and 
their souls dainty meat. Everything sickens and dis- 
quiets. It is seldom they meet with friends so 
ardently affectionate as to make necessary allowance 
for the frequent exacerbations of temper they are 
doomed to witness. This adds to the bitterness of 
the peevish sick man's spirit — and not rarely he goes 
out of the world, cursing the day on which he was 
born, and his connections blessing the day on which 
he died. 

There is another species of the vice under our 
notice, with the mention of which we shall conclude 
this part of our discourse. Hitherto we have sup- 
posed that the evils complained of are for the most 
part real, though not deserving the importance that 
is attached to them. There is a peevishness, how- 
ever, which delights in ills that have no existence but 
in the mind ; and this kind naturally grows out of the 
former. When a man has long habitually indulged 
a captious spirit, his imagination becomes entirely 
disordered. It creates false images, false inferences, 
false fears. He never feels at ease except when 
croaking. His happiness consists in being thoroughly 
unhappy ; and hence, even when his circumstances 
are perfectly comfortable, he sets his wits a- working 
in search of some dead fly or another to spoil his cup 



132 



S£RMOXS. 



of enjoyment. Mark yonder female, apparently in 
the lowest depths of despondency. Passing yester- 
day through the street, she met a favorite acquaint- 
ance who neglected to return her salutation, — 
probably not seeing her: yet she is miserable. 
Mark another character. He is the possessor of 
ten thousand pounds ; yet, he always anticipates 
dying in the almshouse. Observe that, though he is 
remarkable for a sound, vigorous constitution, and 
decidedly proves it three times a day, — that is, at 
every meal, — yet he continually dreams that he is 
sick ; and with more safety may you insinuate that 
he is a thief or a defaulter, than that he is a person 
in good health. A hundred such instances might be 
adduced to show how strangely some persons contrive 
to put themselves out of humor with life and enjoy- 
ment. 

From all that has been said, it appears that the 
vice described is one of no common magnitude. 
We hope, therefore, you will continue to favor us 
with your attention, while we suggest how we can 
most successfully guard ourselves against it, and 
attain a happy serenity of mind under all circum- 
stances. 

The great remedy we offer, at present, is serious 
reflection on the unreasonableness, the misery, and 
the odiousness of the temper delineated. Thought- 
lessness is the parent of this as of all other evil 
habits. Men do not exercise timely consideration, 
but permit it to make gradual and imperceptible 
advances, till it obtains complete mastery over the 
soul. Were they only to think in season, they would 



SERMONS. 



•stand in no need of exhortations to detest and avoid 
it. 

Consider, in the first place, its unreasonableness. 
Is it not most unwise to let ourselves be disturbed by 
every trivial disappointment and cross, like very chil- 
dren, when by the exercise of a little patience we 
should find they are utterly incapable of harming 
us ? Add to this the reflection already made, that 
disappointments of some kind must come. We can- 
not expect to make the voyage of life without en- 
countering head winds and adverse currents. On 
such contingencies we have as much reason to calcu- 
late, as the mariner when he trusts himself to the 
deceitful ocean. He knows what he must expect, — 
he makes his arrangements : accordingly, when the 
unpropitious gale is seen ruffling the deep at a distance, 
he takes it as a thing of course, awaits the issue with 
philosophic tranquillity, — his only care being so to dis- 
pose his canvas as to make the best of it ; and he 
actually succeeds in compelling its aid while proceed- 
ing to his destined port. If overtaken by a calm, he 
quietly casts his anchor, and sits down to the luxury 
of a pipe. He would be ashamed of giving way to 
fretful despondency, because of an occasional cloud 
or squall. Equally absurd is the conduct of him, 
who, because everything in life does not occur pre- 
cisely as he wishes, suffers himself to be deprived of 
his greatest treasure, — his quiet and peace of mind. 

But the unreasonableness of this spirit will appear 
in another point of view. Its possessor takes the 
method best calculated to give reality and weight to 
his trials. By constantly brooding over them, he 
12 



134 



SERMONS. 



gives them an importance to which they have no 
claim, and makes himself the abject slave of what, by- 
one manly effort, he would have learned to despise. 
Which, think you, contrives to enjoy the greatest 
amount of happiness on a journey; the traveller, 
who, laying his account to suffer a variety of little 
hardships, good-humoredly puts up with exorbitant 
charges, laughs at the insolence of drivers, the crazi- 
ness of his vehicle, and the badness of the roads, 
— who, in fine, is determined to be happy in spite of 
circumstances ; or his choleric companion, who, the 
moment he has taken his seat, declares open war with 
heaven and earth, and seems to pride himself on a 
wonderful perspicacity in finding everywhere some- 
thing on which to bestow a groan, if not a profane 
curse. This is a fair illustration of Jonah angry at 
the loss of his gourd. He adopts the very course, 
which, a moment's thought would teach him, is the 
most effectual to multiply and envenom his miseries. 

Consider, in the next place, the odiousness of this 
spirit. We are so constituted that we cannot but feel 
unhappy at the sight of unhappiness ; and this, if ac- 
companied with a belief that the unhappiness which 
affects us is entirely unreasonable, creates a sort of 
anger at him who has obliged us to be miserable 
by sympathy, when there is no adequate cause. Now, 
the peevish, discontented man is precisely this disa- 
greeable character. Misery on his countenance, 
misery on his tongue, we cannot resist the contagion ; 
yet, fully convinced of its unreasonableness, we are 
provoked at his disregard for our tranquillity, and 
at the egotism which would cause us needless pain. 



SERMONS. 



135 



This is a consideration well worth the attention of 
those who feel a propensity to the vice referred to. 
They would do well to consider, that if they wish 
to receive our genuine sympathy, they must take care 
not to make on it unjust or exorbitant demands, lest 
they excite emotions of a very different nature. 
They would do well to consider, that, by continually 
dinning their neighbors' ears with lamentations, 
they will in time come to be viewed as no better than 
swindlers; not, indeed, cheating them out of their 
purse, but doing what is almost equally odious, mak- 
ing unauthorized and fraudulent drafts on their 
stock of feeling and sentiment. 

I would beg leave particularly to impress this 
thought on the aged, and those who labor under 
lingering chronical disease, inasmuch as they are most 
liable to lose sight of it. They feel that their evils 
are not imaginary, and easily persuade themselves 
that they have a right to draw on their neighbors' 
bank of sympathy to any amount. But, then, they 
should reflect that their infirmities, being peculiar 
to themselves, are not fully understood by persons 
enjoying youth and health, and therefore, as to the 
present question, are little better than imaginary ; for 
which reason they will find it much for their interest, 
in no case to demand all that they feel authorized 
to expect. If they desire to pass the evening of their 
days in a circle of affectionate and devoted relatives, 
let them stifle as often as possible the rising sigh. 
Let the smile of tranquillity beam on their counte- 
nances, and their sportful grandchildren hang on 
their lips for the good-natured jest, or instructive 



136 



SEBJfONS. 



story, at the very moment anguish is rioting on the 
heart. In fine, let them beware of that whining, 
querulous disposition, which makes old age, indeed, 
a curse, — a curse to itself, and a curse to all around 
it. 

What a delightful spectacle is that of a sprightly, 
pleasant, chirping old man ; especially when we per- 
ceive his happy temperament to he, not the empty, 
noisy mirth of the fool, but the calm blessedness 
of one who has built on the Rock of Ages an im- 
mortal hope. We cannot help loving him and court- 
ing his society. We see him in a situation, above all 
others, calculated to overspread the mind with gloom, 
and yet, endeavoring to be liapiiy. Our pleasure is 
the greater, because we infer that he seeks our hap- 
piness. We know that he must suffer many things 
of which we have no conceptions ; and yet, from 
regard to us, he casts over them the mantle of a con- 
stant smile. And when, at last, he sinks beneath his 
load ; when he can no longer conceal what he would 
fain conceal, that he is a sufferer, how is he rewarded 
by the tears and tender offices of those, to whose 
happiness he sacrificed the only earthly gratification 
in which it was possible for him to indulge, that of 
asking our sympathy in his sorrows ! In this respect, 
he emphatically verifies the converse of the prop- 
osition, " Ask, and ye shall receive." He ashed not; 
but receives the more. 

There is another class of reflections to which we 
invite the notice of those who, fond of overlooking 
the solid and numerous blessings enjoyed by them- 
selves and others, brood with melancholy exaggera- 



SERMONS. 



137 



tion on the evils of our earthly pilgrimage. The 
temper they indulge is not only odious, but is founded 
on a false estimate of the present state of things, 
in which there is a decided preponderance of pleasure 
and enjoyment. It is too fashionable to suppose that 
our holy religion forbids us to take this view of the 
subject ; that we even do it honor by finding, on every- 
thing here below, the brand of the curse, — as if re- 
ligion commanded us to deny the gracious providence 
of God, to blaspheme the divine beauty of life. 
That sin has wrought awful ravages in our beautiful 
world is a solemn truth. But this is no reason for 
aggravating them and putting them forward on the 
canvas, leaving at the same time all its light and 
happiness in the background. It is a beautiful world 
still. Deny it, and you deny the benevolence of the 
Deity ; nay, you are ready for a plunge into the 
dreary gulf of atheism. Look at facts. We hear 
sometimes of the agonies of famine and thirst ; but 
for every victim to these horrid furies, how many 
happy faces see we, the signs of as happy hearts, — ■ 
hearts filled with joy and gladness. Let any man in 
ordinary health endeavor to compute the pleasurable 
feelings he has experienced in a single day, — those 
of warmth, and of eating and drinking and talking, 
and looking up at the glories of God's heavens, and 
round him at the glories of God's earth ; not to 
speak of the pure joys of our religion, with the vari- 
ous other that fill up every instant of existence, — 
he will find that he may as well undertake to count 
the sands of the seashore, or the stars of a winter sky. 
Sometimes the dagger pierces, the fire burns, and 
12* 



138 



SEBJIONS. 



poison tears the vitals. But we must travel to enjoy 
such sights. Our every-day scenes are of quite a 
different character. We witness occasionally the 
ravages of disease. Perhaps you visited a friend, or 
neighbor to-day, suffering the torments of the stone ; 
or you were condemned to hear the suppressed 
groans of a poor wretch swollen with dropsy. 

" There the tertian shakes his chilling wings, 
The sleepless gout here counts the crowing cocks." 

All true. But have you forgotten that for every such 
picture of woe you can find a thousand of sprightli- 
ness and ruddy health ? Go through the country, my 
dear brother croaker, whose tears are continually 
falling over human wretchedness, — to whom " this 
goodly frame, the earth, seems a sterile promontory ; 
yon brave overhanging firmament a foul and pesti- 
lent congregation of vapors, whom man delights not, 
nor woman either," and the ways of God still less ; 
and count all the beds of sickness, and then count all 
the beds of sweet and quiet repose. Chalk all the 
houses visited by sorrow, and then number, if you 
can, the palaces, cottages, workshops, and shanties, 
which the sweet angel of content is cheering and 
blessing with her smiles. 

Even in the case of the really afflicted, we shall 
often discover, if we look for it, far more happiness 
than misery. " God tempers the wind to the shorn 
lamb." Seldom do we find a cup of sorrow, in which, 
mingled with the wormwood and the gall, are not ex- 
quisite aromaiics, that almost neutralize its bitterness. 
In the darkest night there are stars that look down 



SERMONS. 



139 



with their meek, pleasant eyes, on the lonely sufferer. 
In every situation there are comforts and compensa- 
tions, not the less real or efficacious because they 
escape the notice of the superficial observer. How 
dreadful the condition of yonder blind beggar, we ex- 
claim, deprived of the sweet light of day and con- 
demned to an eternal dungeon ! We imagine that all 
within must be as black and desolate as the night 
without a morn, in which he is enveloped : — 

" Seasons return, but not to him returns 
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, 
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, 
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ; 
But cloud instead, and ever during dark 
Surrounds him." 

But we are quite mistaken in our conjectures. That 
poor wretch, as we think him, and of whom we have 
been quoting, is quite at home in his midnight, — per- 
haps the gayest of the gay. At least, if not merry, 
he is happy. He breathes the air of heaven ; he 
listens to the music of the grove ; his crust has a 
relish which the epicure might envy ; the delightful 
luxury of rest after fatigue is his ; if he does not see 
his children, he can dandle them on his knee, and, 
perhaps, he loves and caresses his old wife more 
fondly than if she was an object of his vision. Yes ; 
even the blind beggar, for one pain, has a thousand 
pleasures, and as he falters along after his faithful 
dog, at once his companion and his guide, can look 
up to Heaven and thank it for existence. In short, 
let us ever keep in view the blessed truth that Divine 
Goodness rules and overrules all events. How can a 



140 



SERMONS. 



man, who firmly believes that a benevolent Deity is in 
everything, fret at anything ? Trust in God with an 
implicit confidence, believing that all things are under 
his gracious care, — that he loves his creatures ; and 
you will soon learn in whatsoever condition you are, 
therein to be content. 

But do we not live in a dying world, replies our 
melancholy friend, and is not this enough to justify 
our complaints ? How soon must all our pleasures 
cease, and the grave swallow up both us and the re- 
membrance of us ! I grant the fact. " We must all 
die," as the wise woman of Tekoah said ; who was not 
so judicious, however, in her following remark, — 
" and are as water spilled on the ground." This, we 
Christians, brought up at the feet of the great Teacher 
of immortality, know to be false. Spilt water, in- 
deed ! No, no, wise woman. Thy sagacity is en- 
tirely at fault. Death is but the porch to life, the 
entrance to a state of blessedness without end, the 
command of the great proprietor of all " to come up 
higher." Why deplore the necessity of such an event 
when preparation is fully in our power ? 

Dying, besides, is essential to the existence and hap- 
piness of the race. It has pleased our good Creator 
to place us on a ball of earth, parts of which consist 
of water, rock, and sand, and all of which doubtless 
have excellent uses, but are not adapted to the sup- 
port of human life. It has also pleased him that our 
race exist in succession, with the evident purpose of 
multiplying indefinitely the objects of his goodness, 
who must have remained few in number, had the 
same generation enjoyed a fee-simple, or perpetual 



SERMONS. 



141 



lease. And thus our little planet lias for six thousand 
years been teeming with life and happiness, sending 
forth from her fruitful womb millions and millions of 
millions, — every individual of whom has tasted the 
blessedness of existence, and filled up its niche in the 
great gallery of the universe, — without any serious 
crowding or being crowded. Forty years ago our 
fathers occupied the beautiful domain. They are 
gone, and we are in possession. In a short time our 
children will need it, and, God bless them, let them 
have it, — woods, tenements, waters, mines, metals, 
fisheries, hereditaments, — all ! It is our part to give 
a smiling welcome to the quit notice, and retire 
gracefully from the scene. The diseases and afflic- 
tions which precede it are not curses, but kind pro- 
visions of nature for reconciling us to the change. 
Were we universally torn away in the flush of health 
and vigor, there might be reason to complain. But 
the general rule is far otherwise. Usually we are 
made to feel that this is not the place of our 
rest, by pains more or less acute, and the growing 
infirmities of age ; so that at last the well-disciplined 
mind takes to death as naturally as the tired infant 
to sleep on its mother's bosom. 

" I would not live alway, I ask not to stay." 

How gently, too, and by what insensible degrees, 
are the generations of men removed from their places 
in the world ! With the exception of now and then 
a pestilence or exterminating war, the work goes on 
so quietly that we scarcely heed it, unless we take a 
large compass of years in our survey. How seldom 



142 SERMONS. 

is more than one of a family taken at a time, and at 
what distant intervals ! The real wonder is, how, in 
thirty or forty years, so many of us contrive to slip 
away from the company without creating any serious 
blank in it ! 

Nor let us forget the admirable arrangement by 
which the loss of friends soon ceases to be felt, leav- 
ing only a tender remembrance that partakes as much 
of pleasure as pain. How soon does time exert its 
soothing power, enabling us to look back with sur- 
prise to the agony experienced in parting ! The 
thought may not be a very sentimental one, nor 
figure in a sonnet, but is undoubtedly true, and a 
proof of the benignant wisdom of Providence, that 
the hiatus in our associations, and feelings, occa- 
sioned by the loss of friends, is tolerably well filled 
up at the end of the first year. At the end of the 
second, were the power given us of resuscitating 
them, we would pause and calculate pros and cons, 
before exerting it. At the end of the third, their 
return might be extremely inconvenient. Ah ! think 
not, my brother, who art mourning over the remains 
of the beloved partner of thy cares and joys, that all 
is lost, and that peace will never revisit thy widowed 
bosom ! The dark night of sorrow may be suc- 
ceeded before you are aware by the dawn of a happy 
morning. Consolation, rich consolation, and in the 
most agreeable form, may be in store for you. 
Peradventure, before the grass carpets the grave of 
her whose irreparable loss you mourn, another of 
heaven's last best gifts to man may grace your deso- 
late bower and Eden bloom again ! Happy for man- 



SERMONS. 



143 



kind, that hearts are of more malleable stuff than 
many imagine. They may be bruised, and bleed at 
the stroke of misfortune, but are seldom known to 
break, except in the pages of some lady novelist. 

Finally ; the great argument, by which we would 
urge you to correct the vice under discussion, is 
its incongruity with our sinful character and condi- 
tion. Whatever our external circumstances be, it 
is certain that they are far better than we deserve. 
We have no right to be angry ; for it is of the 
tender mercies of God that we have not been long 
ere this consumed. Let us think of this, when 
we feel a disposition to repine at the ways of Heaven, 
and charge Providence with unkindness. It will be 
an admirable sweetener of an acrid temper. Con- 
sider, unreasonable man, who permittest thyself to be 
wretched at the loss of a few dollars, or some trifling 
disappointment, that, if thou hadst thy due, thou 
wouldst be in hell, weeping and gnashing thy teeth. 
Let imagination carry thee, for a moment, to the 
regions of the lost, and while listening to the groans 
of an agony which shall never have an end, learn the 
blessedness of thy condition, and the debt of grati- 
tude thou art under to that merciful Being who has 
thus made thee to differ. 



Causes and Cure of Low Spirits. 



VII. 



CAUSES AND CURE OF LOW SPIRITS. 



Psalms 77 : 2-13. |n % bag of mg trouble $ smtflfct % gTorb, etc. 



HAT a terrible state of mind is this de- 
scribed by the Psalmist, and how graphically 
set before us ! We almost see the unhappy 
man writhing and tossing on his bed of 
agony, and hear the doleful laments which he pours 
out with a bitter intensity enough to melt a heart of 
stone. " In the day of my trouble," he says, " I 
sought the Lord : my sore ran in the night, and 
ceased not." But meditations on God only aggra- 
vated the malady. " I thought on Grod and was 
troubled." Billows of distress were all around, and 
deluged his very soul. " I complained, and my spirit 
was overwhelmed." 

This sad mental condition was not peculiar to 
David. The disease is not an uncommon one, and 
exists often when it is least suspected. You will 
allow me, therefore, to make some remarks which 
may be of advantage to those in whose hands God 
has put, for wise reasons, no doubt, this cup of 
trembling. With regard to its nature and symp- 
toms. It consists in a settled depression of mind, 
proceeding from a gloomy apprehension of divine 




148 



SERMONS. 



wrath ; a prevailing doubt, or rather disbelief of our 
pardon and acceptance, producing debility of spirit, 
dark views of Divine Providence, melancholy fore- 
bodings of the future, and an awful sinking of heart 
when eternity or any kindred subject happens to be 
mentioned. 

I have specified debility of spirit as one of its ef- 
fects ; and nothing is more true. There is invariably 
conjoined with it a torpor bordering on paralysis of 
all the moral activities. A man without hope is like 
a ship becalmed and floundering in the trough of the 
sea. He has no motive power, nor buoyancy, no im- 
pulse to exertion, nor any principle of courage to sus- 
tain him in the pursuit of objects beneficial to him- 
self or others. Constantly brooding over his miseries, 
he looks around him with a vacant eye, utterly un- 
appreciative of the claims made upon him by the law 
of duty , — a law in which he finds no advantage 
or reward. He loses his faith in God, in human 
nature, and in all things. Even the great universe 
is, in his eyes, a great sham, a juggler's exhibi- 
tion, plausible enough to the outside gazer, but, to 
him who has been admitted behind the curtain, a 
compound of pasteboard, red ochre, and rancid oil. 
That the sincerely religious man is preserved from 
such a desolating scepticism we may admit, and do 
assuredly believe. But he is often discovered not far 
from its dark confines. Excessive grief is the most 
demoralizing, as well as the meanest of all feelings to 
which the mind can surrender itself, and the Christian 
finds this to his cost, as well as others, if he permits 
it to get the upper hand. It is despair which makes 



SERMONS. 



149 



devils. If, when first cast out from the celestial city, 
they had been permitted to carry with them one bud 
of hope plucked from the trees of Paradise, that bud, 
we can scarce avoid believing, would have ripened 
into the flower, Salvation ; and long before this they 
would have found their way back to God's loving 
bosom and their lost heaven. 

We now proceed to consider, first, the causes ; and, 
second, the cure of this unhappy disease. 

With regard to the first, it is undoubtedly some- 
times occasioned by distemper of body. Thus, per- 
haps, with the Psalmist. He speaks, in the second 
verse, of his sore running in the night, which may, 
indeed, be considered as figurative language, but 
more naturally points to some corporeal trouble, — an 
ulcer, carbuncle, or leprosy, — the torture of which 
deprived him of rest, and so affected his nervous * 
system that life was a burden. Religious feelings, 
like others, ebb and flow with the animal spirits, and 
such is the connection between mind and matter 
that they exercise over each other a most powerful 
influence. Persons, for example, of infirm and sickly 
constitutions are always ready to view things on the 
most gloomy side, and the least circumstance may 
occasion a dejection which they cannot throw off ; 
and this begins very soon to tell on their religion. 
They are too apt to fix their thoughts, if capable of 
thought at all, on the more profound and awful parts 
of divine revelation ; such as the origin of moral 
evil, predestination, the unpardonable sin, and to 
perplex themselves with embarrassing questions that 
would make an archangel low-spirited. 

13* 



150 



SEE 31 ONS. 



Close confinement, also, will often produce this 
moral condition. So, likewise, will excess of care 
and secular engagements, wearing away and exhaust- 
ing the strength. It is also sometimes hereditary 
and the effect of a natural temperament or idiosyn- 
crasy descending from parent to child, as it is found 
to prevail in certain families. I mention this class 
of influences first, because, if the spring of dejection 
lies here, the whole matter is accounted for at once, 
and the aid of medicine must be invoked. There is 
no irreverence in saying that the brain, the bile, and 
the bowels, have much to do with spiritual exer- 
cises, and moderate doses of blue pill and sulphate of 
quinine, with plenty of exercise in the open air, are 
sometimes to be ranked among the most efficacious 
means of grace. 

Take the case of the unhappy Cowper, that man 
of genius, baptized in the Holy Ghost, to whose 
writings the Christian community is so greatly in- 
debted. A stranger to his history would hardly be 
brought to believe that, at the very time of writing 
that most humorous of productions, " John Gilpin," 
in which the very spirit of fun and merriment seems 
embodied, the author was in a state of hopeless 
misery almost without a parallel. During much of 
his life he was the slave of a mental depression bor- 
dering on madness. The heavens above were star- 
less ; the earth beneath was, to him, ever reeling and 
rocking over a fiery abyss. In a word, he had 
persuaded himself that he was a God-abandoned 
reprobate, and actually died in the horror of such a 
thought. Yet nothing is clearer to an attentive 



SERMONS. 



151 



reader of his biography than that the cause of his 
misery lay in a morbid organism, and might have 
been removed by seasonable appliances to the seat of 
the disease. Happy would it have been for the poor 
valetudinarian, had he been rescued from the mo- 
notony of a sedentary life, from his easy-chair, his 
pious widows, pet-rabbits, and indiscreet, though well- 
meaning clergyman, who discoursed high theology to 
him when he should have been sweating at the plough- 
tail, or ranging through highways and byways on 
a blooded English hunter ; even though, like that 
of the renowned hero of his ballad, it should some- 
times carry him farther than he intended : had he, 
in a word, been thrown into the excitements and stir 
of an active, engrossing occupation. Let us not 
charge on religion what is the effect of causes purely 
physical, and which (the causes remaining) no piety 
can cure. It is an abuse of language to call a greasy 
stomach or a torpid liver by the sounding name of 
spiritual desertion. 

Superstition is, at times, an occasion of religious 
depression, in those pious persons who have en- 
joyed scant opportunities of enlightenment. There 
is nothing so trifling which the superstitious and 
over-scrupulous mind may not magnify into an affair 
of vital importance ; for example, the appearance of 
a comet, the ticking of an insect in rotten wood, or 
some peculiarity in the flame of a candle. In this 
case, the conscience is not in a healthy state, but con- 
tracts a morbid irritability, under the influence of 
which its subject can say nothing and do nothing 
without feeling an unnatural alarm, — an alarm for 



152 



SEEM OX S. 



which no reasonable account can be given. Keliance 
on dreams, sudden impressions, or what is called 
presentiments, illusive voices, imaginary warnings of 
the death of distant friends, and other revelations 
from the spiritual world, cannot fail to produce such 
a distemperature of spirit as takes away all its manly 
vigor. Wild and horrible imaginings, fostered by a 
sort of preaching not yet entirely exploded, and 
even by ecclesiastical anathemas concerning the na- 
ture of future punishment, as if it consisted in literal 
burning and other instrumentalities of physical tor- 
ture, — one of the stupidest conceits that ever entered 
the imagination, to craze it, and not having a shadow 
of foundation in the word of God, — tend in the same 
direction. Likewise, false notions of the sin against 
the Holy Ghost ; a sin, which, if ever committed 
since the Spirit withdrew from the church his sensi- 
ble manifestations, requires such a rare concurrence 
of circumstances that its commission now is simply 
possible. In fact, we may trace a large proportion of 
all the instances of this mental malady to some form 
of ignorance and superstition. 

There is a mode, for instance, of contemplating 
the doctrine of a special providence which proves 
a source of much self-torment. Instead of resting 
satisfied with the general fact, so rational and delight- 
ful, that the great Father, who orders all things 
according to the counsel of his will, regards with 
a special interest the welfare of his people, many 
Christians carry the matter so far, that every incident 
that befalls them and theirs, the most trivial occur- 
rence in domestic life, is interpreted to be a voice, 



SERMONS. 



153 



directly from the throne, either of commendation, 
or reproof; and therefore, a sort of thermometrical 
gauge, by which they are enabled to make a shrewd 
guess at their spiritual condition. Ever craying after 
sensible proofs of their adoption, they look away from 
those placed within their reach, to tests which will 
certainly mislead. They want a sign from heaven, 
and that sign they find in the treatment they receive 
from Providence in its daily workings. These they 
note with painful minuteness, and perhaps record in 
a private journal ; forgetting that God has quite other 
purposes to answer in his providential dealings, than 
informing sister Hepzibah, or brother Smith, how 
they stand in his estimation on a particular morning. 
From this, arise painful misgivings ; fears that he has 
withdrawn his tender mercy; for why — they ask, and 
on their theory with perfect justice — does he visit 
them with so many tokens of his displeasure, and 
count them as enemies ? Thus, the excellent Boston, 
author of the "Fourfold State," whose autobiog- 
raphy is full of such reminiscences, was plunged 
into a black melancholy, that lasted for weeks, by the 
simple circumstance, that one day, stepping from the 
door-sill, he stumbled, and sprained his ankle. The 
good man refused to be comforted, and perhaps 
another stumble would have so settled the question 
of his Christian hope that he would have gone 
mourning all his days. Meanwhile, the true lesson 
of this providence he seems to have entirely over- 
looked, at least makes no mention of it, namely, the 
necessity of an elderly man's taking better heed 
to his steppings. Nothing is more easy than in this 



154 



SERMONS. 



way poisoning the sources of happiness ; and, usu- 
ally, God suffers the error to punish itself by the 
baneful consequences that follow. 

We may notice, as a cause of depression, the appli- 
cation of some other false tests in estimating Christian 
character. Every one, familiar with religious ex- 
perience, knows that it exhibits itself very differently 
in different individuals, according to their peculiar 
temperaments. While the same spiritual life vivifies 
the whole body of Christ, there is a beautiful variety 
in its forms of manifestation. There are diversities of 
gifts, but the same spirit, — differences of adminis- 
tration, but the same Lord. With some, the devo- 
tional type is predominant. They love to soar on the 
wings of holy contemplation, and get away, where 
they can join the songs of the glorified round the 
great white throne. Others find their chief en- 
joyment in the sphere of practical life. With 
them is predominant a sense of obligation, — of duty. 
They know very little of the ecstasies and raptures 
which some speak of; but they are efficient workers, 
and must be principally depended on for the diffusion 
of truth and holiness throughout the world. Some, 
like Paul, expatiate con amore in the field of doctrinal 
investigation. Others, like loving John, are always 
found in their Master's bosom. Others, with the 
high-souled James, are looking with steady gaze at 
the perfect law of liberty. 

There are honest Thomases, also, of an inquiring 
turn, always hungering and thirsting for evidence ; 
finding difficulty in bringing up their faith completely 
to the approved standard regarding certain articles, 



SERMONS. 



155 



considered by some nearly fundamental. 1 Others 
have a faculty of belief that can swallow mountains. 
There are men who can believe propositions astound- 
ing enough to startle inanity itself, though they, 
on the other hand, are equally unfortunate, who 
have no receptivity whatever, — like a friend of the 
speaker, who confessed that he never could finally 
persuade himself of the existence of the city of 
London, until he found himself in the middle of 
it, looking up at the cupola of St. Paul's. Some, 
to proceed with our remarks, are fond of the public 
element of religion, — neglect no occasions of being 
present in the house of God on the Sabbath, and are 
seldom absent from the more informal reunions dur- 
ing the week. Others delight to walk along by the 
silent shore of private meditation. There is, also, a 
class — which noisy bigots hardly recognize as belong- 
ing to the sacramental host at all — whose love 
to God, perfectly sincere, but not demonstrative, 
takes the form of philanthropy. There is still 
another class, of a temperament so joyous, that re- 
ligion with them is a perpetual festival ; they seem 
ready to break out in a song or a dance. Opposed to 
them are those whose piety is of so gloomy a type 
that they seem just escaped from the cell of a mon- 
astery. These varieties are in perfect accordance with 
each other. None could well be spared. All are 
essential, like the different strings of a perfect 
musical instrument, to the grand diapason, or general 
symphony. 

But, yet, the fact stated is often a source of moral 
anxiety to the Christian. He is conscious of a dole- 



156 



SFEJIOXS. 



ful coming short in many excellent gifts which others 
possess. He has not their measure of devotional feel- 
ing, comparatively little experience of what is called 
communion with God. Even the spirit of prayer is not 
that in which he sees many fellow Christians rejoice. 
Meanwhile, he has ample compensation if he only 
knew it ; more humility, more calm and settled 
dependence, greater firmness and persistency, and a 
stronger sense of practical obligation. The process 
of sanctincation is going on, if less ostentatiously, with 
far more depth; though he makes no noise in the 
street, nor lets loose a glib tongue in every prayer- 
meeting. Dazzled, however, with the more brilliant 
demonstrations around, he writes the most cruelly 
bitter things against himself, and is almost willing to 
believe that he is an entire stranger to the grace of 
God ; while, in sterling attainment, he may occupy a 
position so immeasurably superior as to be out of 
sight. 

Another source of trouble, and a very common 
one, is a serious misapprehension of the gospel doc- 
trine of forgiveness. That doctrine is embraced in 
the simple formula, level to the comprehension of a 
child : " Hie grace of Grod freely remits sin through 
Christ." When the penitent is led to credit this, and 
rest upon it with childlike reliance, not taking away 
from its rich pregnancy of meaning, nor corrupting 
its purity by the addition of any foreign element, his 
alarm subsides ; for peace of conscience naturally and 
necessarily follows a believing apprehension of the 
blood of atonement. But, if he errs here, — if, 
misunderstanding the plan of the gospel, he continues 



SERMONS. 



to trust partly in himself, and' endeavors to establish 
a quasi righteousness of his own, not submitting 
absolutely and without mental reservation to the 
righteousness of God, — his distress is sure to increase ; 
and, if other things concur, to plunge him into a 
settled gloom. Though truly penitent, he does not 
believe that he is. Though invited freely to the 
cross, he excludes himself from its benefits, for he 
conceives that he is at present too great a sinner to 
venture on approaching ; he must make himself 
better before he comes. In the mean time, cleaving 
to the law which only condemns, he labors, watches, 
prays, with the intensest earnestness, but no kind of 
success. His laborious experiments of self-improve- 
ment always turn out disastrously, and his life is 
spent in a wearisome drudgery of outward duties 
and self-inflictions, which, instead of meliorating his 
condition, leave him worse and more miserable than 
before, — like the poor shirt- woman in the song, con- 
demned eternally to her " sew, sew, sew," as the sole 
means of eking out a wretched existence, until even 
this resource fails her, and in utter hopelessness she 
lays herself down and dies. Many of the truly pious 
realize something of this in their religious experience. 
They do not, of course, die the death eternal ; but, 
they are chastised till the last moment, for the dis- 
honor they have done to their Saviour's grace. They 
go to heaven, but in a cloud, — not in chariots of fire 
amid the jubilee of exulting angels and the spirits 
of the just. 

Another frequent cause of low spirits, not suffi- 
ciently considered, is some wilful sin secretly cher- 

14 



158 



SERMON S. 



ished in the heart and often practised in the life. I 
do not allude to sins of ignorance or infirmity, nor 
to the effects of sudden temptation, when the enemy 
comes in like a flood, nor to the imperfections which 
are inseparable from our purest thoughts and actions. 
These ought not to occasion religious depression ; for 
they are incident to our frail humanity. But if some 
course of habitual, overt acts of criminality, whether 
open or secret, be entered on, some palpable incon- 
sistency admitted, some lie taken to the bosom, some- 
thing that lays waste the conscience or grieves the 
Holy Spirit, the consequence frequently is, and ought 
to be, a complete shutting off by that divine agent of 
his comforting influences. Ephraim is wedded to an 
idol, and the Lord will not contest the matter, but 
says, " Let him alone." The unhappy Christian, 
now fairly started on a course of retrograde move- 
ment, has, it is likely, many checks of conscience and 
warnings of mercy. Probably some event of a rousing 
nature occurs. Some awakening sermon, or book, or a 
casual conversation, startles him out of his lethargy. 
He repents, and endeavors to return to God. Per- 
haps he does return, at least there is the appear- 
ance of it, and he seems to walk for a time in deep 
contrition and exemplary watchfulness. But the 
reptile is scotched, not killed outright. His old pro- 
clivities, after a while, like a wound healed only on 
the surface, break out afresh. These declensions and 
revivings, these shillings and repentings, recur again 
and again, like the periodical intermissions of an 
ague. But by each relapse his state of mind becomes 
more thoroughly miserable. He maintains, perhaps, 



SERMONS. 



159 



fair appearances before his friends, — mighty in a 
prayer-meeting, a Boanerges in the pulpit, — but a 
worm secretly gnaws his vitals, and a hidden fire 
drinks up his spirit. 

In addition to these causes of inward grief, long- 
continued affliction must likewise be mentioned. It 
is very common to talk flippantly on this subject. 
Few things are more easy than to bear with Christian 
patience and magnanimity the trials of others. We 
are full of matter, as Elihu says ; our belly is ready to 
burst as new bottles when we recommend submission 
to a suffering friend ; but to feel the scourge on our 
own backs is a very different matter. If the calamity 
be not of that overwhelming character, which, like 
the tornado, strikes down everything before it, 
blanching the hair and breaking the heart at once, it 
may be sustained. But if otherwise, — if sorrows 
come, as the poet says, " not as single spies, but in 
battalions ; " if they touch us precisely in the most 
vulnerable part, or if they be continued and compli- 
cated, stroke following stroke, snapping in rapid suc- 
cession all the ties which bind us to life, — we may 
claim a lofty heroism which even patient Job had not, 
if we find that our spirits begin not to fail. A 
little of the wholesome discipline of trial, like a little 
persecution, braces up the soul. A man with head 
erect, can walk right into it; but it is very different 
when deep calls unto deep, at the noise of God's 
waterspouts, and all his billows go over us. 

I mention, lastly, the hiding of God's countenance. 
This is not an imaginary trouble, nor, as the strangers 
to living piety are fond of supposing, a form and out- 



160 



SJEZJfOXS. 



growth of fanaticism. There is a mysterious com- 
munion with the Author of blessedness, when God 
and the soul seem to touch, which it is the privilege 
and high happiness of the renewed mind to experi- 
ence, though unable to define it in such a way as to 
satisfy a mere earthly logic, or impart a knowledge of 
it to other minds ; and when it is intercepted, nothing- 
can be more forlorn and dreary than the state of 
eclipse which follows. Under other inflictions it may 
be conceived possible to bear up. But, when God 
withdraws the light of his countenance from a spirit 
susceptible of and habituated to its enjoyment, the 
loss is intolerable. Our Lord, in the hour of his un- 
paralleled suffering, did not complain till he came to 
this part of his cup. But then he did complain. He 
could not bear it, but gives vent to his bursting an- 
guish in that memorable exclamation, " My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " 

Enough has probably been said on the causes of 
disease in question. We proceed, 

Secondly, to treat of its cure. Now, there are three 
very different methods of bringing about this desirable 
issue. The one is adopted by the man of the world 
when he falls in with a case which he wishes to re- 
lieve. The second is that of the injudicious though 
well-meaning Christian friend ; who, in applying it, 
often does more harm than good, — his prescription 
being as apt to kill as to cure. The third is that 
which we recommend, and which we shall speak of 
after briefly noticing the others. 

The man of the world has a sincere compassion 
for one laboring under religious dejection, but, not 



SERMONS. 



161 



understanding the pathology of the case, cannot 
direct him to the proper remedy. He simplifies the 
matter exceedingly. Like the medical theorist who 
admits of but one disease in the human system, or 
the musician who plays on a single string, he provides 
a single cause for all the forms of the evil. With 
him it is vapor, a morbid state of the imagination, 
which he calls the blues, and he proposes diversion, 
pleasure, dissipation, as a universal antidote. When 
these methods are employed without discrimination, 
as they too often are, the effect may be easily conjec- 
tured. Undoubtedly, they may remove lowness of 
spirits for a time ; but it is often by generating a 
still more ( dangerous disease, disregard of God and 
insensibility of conscience, which, if they continue, 
must issue in the absolute ruin of the soul. " Be- 
hold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass your- 
selves about with sparks, this shall ye have of mine 
hand, saith the Lord; ye shall lie down in sorrow." 

The second mode is adopted by the injudicious 
Christian friend (like the author of a tract on Assur- 
ance, that has been making some noise -in our 
churches). In one respect there is a strong likeness 
between this kind of adviser and the man of the 
world. He, too, is apt to play on one string. With- 
out weighing different circumstances, he proposes the 
same remedy in every instance. He would comfort 
at all events, and through all impediments. Instead 
of examining the several causes of grief, for the pur- 
pose of making appropriate applications, he at once 
holds forth such an exhibition of the gospel as en- 
courages sin ; separating its consolations from that 

14* 



162 



SEXJfONS. 



holy diligence in renouncing evil habits which is 
essential to the attainment of true comfort. This is to 
administer an opiate, which composes, indeed, but 
by stupefying. This is to " heal the hurt of the 
daughter of my people " slightly, saying, " Peace, 
peace, when there is no peace." 

The considerate and wise adviser, when called in, 
proceeds by another method. He will not speak com- 
fort except on solid grounds. He endeavors to dis- 
cern the things that differ, and thus " show himself 
approved of God, a workman that needeth not to be 
ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." For 
example : If there is ground for believing that the 
sufferer labors under bodily maladies, he will recom- 
mend, in the first instance, bodily remedies, — in a 
word, due attention to health. If his spirits are 
broken by excessive study, or constant fagging at a 
sedentary occupation, he will advise him to unbend 
the bow, to take a voyage, keep a horse, cultivate a 
little farm, or join a cricket club. He will teach him 
to distinguish between the natural consequences of 
bodily disease, and the effects of the displeasure of 
God ; so that he will see the utter folly of attempt- 
ing to cure the- low spirits induced by the former in 
any other way than obedience to the laws which 
govern the animal machine, — laws which he can no 
more alter by prayers and texts of Scripture, than he 
can alter the precession of the equinoxes, or the pas- 
sage of the sun through the zodiac. In short, re- 
ligious counsellors should think of the wise and sa- 
gacious Isaiah, who, called in to prescribe for the 
terrible dejection of good king Hezekiah, preached 



SERMONS. 



163 



no sermon, but applied a poultice for a plaster : " Let 
them take a lump of figs and lay it on the boil, and 
he will recover." If he perceives him harassed by su- 
perstitious fears, he will exhort him to study the 
Bible with the aid of a rational commentator, or dip 
into some popular book of natural science. He will 
endeavor to enlarge his mind in short ; to show him 
that sheer ignorance caused his panic terrors, and 
to make him ashamed of that ignorance. I once 
knew a young person, who had scarce entered her 
teens, kept in such constant fright by the ticking of 
what seemed a watch at the head of her bed, por- 
tending, as she thought, a speedy death, that she lost 
her health and appetite, and gave every indication 
of falling into a decline. After long concealing the 
dreadful secret, she one day confessed it to her father, 
who smilingly took down from the shelf a book of 
natural history, and pointed out the insect that pro- 
duced the noise, explaining at the same time how it 
was done. The effect was instantaneous. The child 
recovered her health and spirits almost in a moment, 
bounded up in an ecstasy, clapped her hands and ex- 
claimed, " dear father, what a world of misery I 
have endured, that would soon have put me in my 
cold, dark grave ; and all because I did not under- 
stand the drumming of a dear little bug that was 
kindly entertaining me with its music I " In the dis- 
tress springing from a misapprehension of the plan 
of the gospel, the wise counsellor will expatiate on 
the free, pardoning love of God. He will tell the 
desponding penitent that God delighteth in mercy, that 
he has no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but 



164 



SERMONS. 



would rather that he should turn to him and live. 
When the Father sees the returning prodigal afar off, 
he runs forward, falls on his neck and kisses him. 
God is love. 

Another topic, in this case, will be the all-suffi- 
ciency of the death and intercession of the Saviour. 
What can exceed the merits of our incarnate 
Lord ? What surpass the virtue of his sacrifice ? 
Did he not die the just for the unjust ? Is not 
his death a propitiation for the sins of the whole 
world ? Was not the law fulfilled, the moral govern- 
ment of God honored, justice appeased, and the de- 
mands of holiness answered? Is not Christ now in 
heaven as our intercessor, and is he not able to save 
to the uttermost ? Shall a man presume to say 
that his sins are too great to be expiated by such a 
mighty undertaker, who, even in the days of his weak- 
ness raised the dead, and, hy the speaking of a word, 
hushed the furious tempest into a sahbath calm ? 

The free and unlimited offer of the gospel is likewise 
an appropriate means of relief. " Whosoever will, let 
him come." Jesus stood and cried : " If any man 
thirst, let him come unto me and drink, and out of 
his belly shall flow rivers of living water." " Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest." Let the child of sorrow listen to 
these accents of mercy till his soul drinks in their ful- 
ness of blessed meaning. Let him acknowledge the 
misery and disappointment which have attended his 
most strenuous efforts to become really holy on the plan 
of self-reliance he has at present adopted. What a poor, 
weak, and depraved being is he ! For such a crea- 



SERMONS. 



165 



ture, so fallen, and alienated from the life of God, to 
purchase heaven, or to change his own heart, or even 
contribute to it by any direct efficiency, is impossible. 
As well may a paralytic be told to rise up and walk. 
He can do nothing free from sin, even though deliver- 
ance from eternal death were the reward of that 
single deed. Let him, then, with his anxious, horror- 
stricken mind, cast himself before the mercy-seat for 
free justification and effectual help, humbly imploring 
the Divine Spirit to impart the consolation arising 
from the pardon of his sins by the death of Christ, 
and ability to serve him in newness of life. Never 
will he attain enlargedness of heart, or taste the full 
happiness of a religious life, until he has acquired 
the divine art of "casting himself wholly on the 
Lord," taking hold of his strength to be at peace 
with him." 

But when the depression arises from indulgence in 
some course of sin, whether secret or open, the faithful 
physician must adopt quite a different therapeutics : 
here grace and the privileges of the gospel are not 
the topics to be employed, at least until much pre- 
liminary work has been accomplished, and that 
thoroughly. The conscience must first be roused 
from its asphyxed state to do its office. The whole 
moral condition of the individual, the heart, the af- 
fections, the conduct, must be subjected to a rigid 
scrutiny ; for the only effectual remedy, in such a 
case, is to 'eradicate the cause of the mischief. The 
poisoned tree must not be pruned, nor simply cut 
down, but torn up by the roots. If prayer in secret 
has been neglected, — habits unfavorable to the growth 



166 



SERMONS. 



of religion have been indulged ; if a lax and remiss 
walk with God has been admitted ; if lust or covet- 
ousness, or pride, or pleasure, or wrath, have gradu- 
ally got possession of the sceptre so as to control the 
practical will ; if he slanders, or refuses to pay his 
just dues, or keeps false weights, — the advice to be 
given is perfectly obvious : we must part from our 
sins, or our religion. There is no middle way. Any 
one habitual transgression, deliberately committed, 
undermines all the moral energies of the soul, and 
positively excludes from the kingdom of heaven. 
" Let no man deceive you with vain words, for be- 
cause of such things the wrath of God cometh on the 
children of disobedience." u Know ye not that to 
whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his ser- 
vants ye are whom ye obey, whether of sin unto 
death, or obedience unto righteousness ? " It is of 
no consequence, how necessary the passion or prac- 
tice may have become to you. It may be as dear as 
a right eye or right hand ; but, though dear as life 
itself, you must renounce it, Christian professor, or 
God will renounce you. To persist in the forbidden 
thing for a single day may have eternal issues. To 
excuse or hide it by an affected sanctity in other 
respects, by austere punctiliousness in matters of the 
tithe, mint, and cumin, is only adding one crimi- 
nality to another, and doubling the peril : one thing 
is certain, your depression will continue. Your very 
conversion becomes a serious question, arid can only 
be resolved in your favor by promptly returning to 
the King's highway which you have so unwisely and 
wickedly deserted. 



SEH310NS. 



167 



In illustration of this, let me give an anecdote re- 
corded of that remarkable man of God, whose praise 
is in the churches, the Eev. Asahel Nettleton. A 
clerical friend was assisting him in New Haven, 
during a great revival of religion which was in 
progress, and, in passing through the circle of in- 
quirers, he came upon a man who had long made a 
profession of religion, but suffered under such a ter- 
rible dejection of spirit that he was ready to give up 
all as lost ; and had come to the conference to know 
if anything could be done for one in so hopeless a 
condition. The clergyman related the interview to 
Mr. Nettleton, who, after a slight pause, replied : 
" I think I know the man, and I know the cause 
of his trouble. In my conversations with him I 
have repeatedly taken in his breath, which indicated 
a pretty free use of liquor, not probably to the ex- 
tent of intoxication, but in sufficient measure to 
intercept communication with the source of all spirit- 
ual comfort ; for I have always observed," he added, 
with his peculiar intonation, " that the two excite- 
ments, that of the Spirit of God, and the spirit of the 
still, can never live together." A day or two after, he 
frankly disclosed his suspicions to the individual. 
With strong crying and tears he admitted the charge, 
solemnly abjured the practice of alcoholic stimula- 
tion, and in a short time was rejoicing with the hap- 
piest in the peace that passes understanding. Verily, 
it is a truth, which we all should remember with 
great searchings of soul, " If I regard iniquity in my 
heart, the Lord will not hear me." 

Should, however, long-continued, stunning afflic- 



168 SERMONS. 

tions be the principal cause of grief, the sufferer's view 
should be taken off from his own particular trouble, 
and directed to God's general dealings with his ser- 
vants. " Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth." He 
must also have his mind kept closely pressed with the 
remembrance of his demerits. " Wherefore should a 
living man complain, — a man for the punishment of 
his sins ? " Nor will the suggestion be unprofitable, that 
to reach heaven at last, no matter through how many- 
fires we must pass, is infinitely better than a smooth, 
flowery way to hell. Salvation is a blessing worth a 
thousand times its cost, cost what it may. The sor- 
rows encountered on the road, if we are duly ex- 
ercised by them, will only heighten the joy that 
awaits its termination. Only, then, raise your hearts 
to the source of all light and consolation, the Elder 
Brother, who trod the dolorous way before you, 
and hear him saying in the darkest hour, " Fear not, 
neither be dismayed ; I will strengthen thee, yea, I 
will uphold thee with the right arm of my righteous- 
ness." In a word, let the child of affliction never give 
up hope. With this sheet-anchor he can defy the 
most driving tempest that ever blew ; without it, he 
will make shipwreck, should a zephyr breathe a little 
rudely. " Do but despair," says our great poet, 
"do but despair, and if -thou wantest a cord, the 
smallest thread that ever spider wove will strangle 
thee." 

I have one word to add for the consideration of my 
irreligious readers, and it is this : that though they 
may amuse themselves and others with the dejection 
which sincere Christians often endure, and crack 



SERMONS. 



169 



many a merry joke on the long faces they pretend to 
see among them, yet they have exceedingly small 
reason for self-con gratulation. They are free from 
religious fears, and why f I say, why ? Because 
they are without religion. The fears of a pious man 
are frequently ungrounded, but those of an ungodly 
one always come short of the reality ; and, though 
they may be repressed just now, will overtake him 
at last with crushing force. A careless life is very 
apt to be followed by a wretched death. To be with- 
out the occasional sadness which preys upon the 
spirit of the faint-hearted Christian, might be very 
well ; but to be without his repentance, his faith, his 
love, his hope of heaven, — deficient in liveliness as 
it may be, — indicates a state of extreme and ur- 
gent peril. If there is a reasonable fear in the 
world, the man has grounds for it who finds him- 
self in this predicament. Let him, before it is too 
late, rouse all his powers to seek after God. Let him 
flee for mercy to the foot of the cross. Then, and 
then only, will he be able to judge aright of the re- 
ligious dejection of those whom he now despises ; and 
will acknowledge that their sharpest griefs are more 
to be desired than the worldling's finest joys. 

15 



your Own Business. 



VIII. 

DO YOUR OWN BUSINESS. 

1 Thess. 4:11. ^nir %t stwbg to Jhrje quiet, unir to iro gonr 0fon business. 



HERE are subjects in practical religion of 
vital importance, affecting the very essence 
of Christianity as a guide of human conduct, 
which its official expounders are tempted to 
quietly pass over ; or, when on rare occasions present- 
ed, handle with silken gloves, under the influence of 
two different feelings. The one is an apprehension, 
not always ill-founded, that the faithful insisting on 
them may subject to the imputation of singling out a 
particular class of hearers, or individuals belonging to 
that class, as the butt of acrimonious personalities, — 
a mean and odious practice, from which every honor- 
able mind recoils. The other is, a fear that they will 
be departing from their proper work, which is not to 
preach law, but gospel; as if the inculcation of social 
duties was not a part of it, and as if our Lord's Ser- 
mon on the Mount did not almost wholly consist of 
utterances on the very subjects which they, with 
many of their hearers, would almost banish from 
the pulpit. The slightest examination of the New 
Testament will refute this pernicious error. The 
truth is, and cannot be denied or evaded, that a large 

15* 




174 



S E R M N S. 



proportion of its subject-matter stands in immediate 
relation, not to peculiarities of doctrine, — though 
these are always assumed as the foundation, — but to 
duties of the practical life. They are sometimes 
spoken of by good men, whose phylacteries are 
broader than their understanding, as " husks of dry 
morality." But they are husks which all of us need 
to be mixed in at least with our richer aliment, 
which, taken alone, would be too concentrated for 
our feeble powers of digestion. Many a religious 
professor suffers from the neglect of this caution. 
That exquisite moral sensibility, which starts back 
with horror from the smallest violation of relative du- 
ties to his fellow-men, has not been cultivated. The 
second table of the law has not been driven home to 
the conscience, written there as if with the point of a 
diamond. Hence his conduct in reference to it cannot 
bear a very close inspection. His mental health is 
evidently not robust ; his diet (to use a figure) is too 
saccharine ; instead of chalybeate and exercise, his 
professional adviser has put him on a course of God- 
frey's cordial, which soothes for an hour, but weakens 
all the springs of life. On the Sabbath he weeps de- 
voutly under the melting influence of an excellent ser- 
mon on justification by faith, or on the great and pre- 
cious promises. On Monday, if the truth were known, 
he may be seen manipulating with a somewhat ab- 
breviated yard-stick, or practising some other of the 
thousand tricks of dishonesty by which men contrive 
to defraud each other without fear of the civil tribu- 
nal. Such cases, we hope, are not numerous, but are 
frequent enough to put a weapon into the hands of 



SERMONS. 



175 



the mocking infidel, with which he attacks, not spuri- 
ous pretences to religion, but religion itself. May 
not this want of rigid conscientiousness, — not to 
call it by the harsher name of practical antino- 
mianism, — in the daily business and intercourse of 
life, be attributed in some degree to the cause which 
has been mentioned ? 

This is our apology for introducing a topic seldom 
treated, except in the way of general allusion, be- 
cause belonging to an unpopular class, and not un- 
popular only, but branded, by some, as almost il- 
legitimate. The apostle, however, is evidently of a 
different opinion, as you see he does not scruple to 
give it a place in his inspired teachings. His train 
of thought is the following : He, in the .first place, 
exhorts his Thessalonian friends to " study to be 
quiet ; " by which we may understand, a sincere en- 
deavor to attain such a happy composure of mind 
that no agitations of disorderly passion, nor any out- 
ward assaults of fortune shall be able to ruffle it. 
A most desirable condition indeed, if connected, as it 
always should be, with faith in an all-wise, heavenly 
Providence. When the soul has struggled up to 
this calm repose in God, this sacred elevation above 
the pleasures and pains of the earthly life, it has 
already attained, in germ, its proper heaven, and can 
form a not indistinct notion of that completeness of 
felicity which awaits it beyond the grave. Let no 
one object that such a state must not be looked for 
here. There is no perfection, it is true, in anything 
beneath the sun. But what we say and maintain is, 
that the soul may make constant advances in this di- 



176 



SERMON 8. 



reetion, and the recorded experience of not a few, 
but many, who, like saintly Enoch, walked with God 
until " he took them," proves that the ideas, enter- 
tained by the ancient sages, of a profound philo- 
sophical serenity attainable in this life, are not en- 
tirely dreams. 

It is not to be reached, however, without strenuous 
efforts. "We must " study" for it, says Paul,— work be- 
fore rest. We live in the midst of noise, fierce struggle, 
and endless agitation ; among scenes where objects 
continually present themselves calculated to break in 
upon the most confirmed habits of tranquillity ; a 
world of sin, affliction, death. And, moreover, every 
man has a " world " of turbulent passions in his 
bosom, which are not to be kept under without vigor- 
ous exertion. But, lest the apostle's doctrine be 
misunderstood, he adds the very important caution, 
" doing your own business." So far from intend- 
ing? D 7 the virtue he recommends, a stupid, idle 
apathy, like that of a Hindoo devotee or a cloistered 
monk, he declares it to be necessarily connected with 
action, with diligence, and untiring assiduity in per- 
forming the duties appropriate to the place and sta- 
tion we occupy in the world. But this is not all. 
His words coDvey another most pregnant and weighty 
intimation, namely, that it is our own business which 
we must do, and not that of other people ; giving us 
distinctly to understand that of all enemies to true 
Christian quiet, the greatest is an officious thrusting 
ourselves forward into matters which do not belong 
to us. This is the thought on which I propose to 
enlarge. 



SERMONS. 



177 



There is no creature so generally despised as a 
meddler ; and yet how few there are innocent enough 
in the matter to cast stones at their offending neigh- 
bor ! It is not my design to show him up by a com- 
plete dissection, but only to point out two or three 
classes of people whom, doubtless, the apostle had 
directly in his eye, and some of whom may be in 
mine, though I do not know it. 

We naturally take notice, in the first place, of the 
more harmless class of persons obnoxious to the 
charge, though they are by no means innocent, ex- 
cept by comparison. I mean those little, bustling 
searchers after news, who, without any definite mo- 
tive, good, bad, or indifferent, but under a consti- 
tutional weakness of mind, busy themselves with 
collecting and placing in their budget every event, 
great or small, true or false, that may be said to 
have occurred within the circuit of half a county, — 
gathering up the fragments that nothing be left. 
These are, in their small way, extraordinary person- 
ages. In their sphere, you would take them to be so 
many little gods, for they seem to possess the attribute 
of omniscience. Scarcely a circumstance escapes 
them. They know precisely what happened at such 
a time, in such a place, in such a family ; how far, to 
a hair, such an interesting business between certain 
parties is advanced ; what the father said, and the 
mother, and the kindred in general ; when it shall 
be brought to a close ; and surcharged with this 
precious intelligence, they run to and fro with the 
most generous anxiety to make everybody as wise as 
themselves. Hold silence, they cannot. Like Elihu, 



178 



SERMONS. 



in Job, they say, " I am full of matter : " — " ready 
to burst like new bottles." 

It must be conceded that the masses of in- 
formation thus obtained are not always to be relied 
on. But why expect that such magnificent piles 
of knowledge, collected in a thousand ways, from 
a thousand sources, should be reliable ? The won- 
der is that the adepts in this department of doing 
other people's business contrive to elicit so many 
grains of truth, often under circumstances the most 
unfavorable that can be imagined. There is no 
escaping behind thick clouds or stone walls from 
their eagle-eye ; it penetrates the darkest shade of 
concealment, detects mysteries secret as the grave, 
and sees while yet very far off. 

I have called these the more innocent class of 
meddlers, because they appear to be actuated by lit- 
tleness of mind, not principles positively bad, and 
are, in fact, rather childish than wicked. They are 
generally to be found among the ignorant and idle, 
— those, who, destitute of solid knowledge and above 
the necessity of unremitting exertions for their sup- 
port, find time lying heavy on their hands. Hence 
the striking and curious description, given by St. 
Paul, of the younger widows, in the fifth chapter 
of his first epistle to Timothy, where he represents 
them as idle, wandering about from house to house ; 
and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busy-bodies. 
Being left probably in a state of worldly comfort, 
but entirely without that mental cultivation which 
woiild enable them to find resources in writing, read- 
ing, painting, music, and their own thoughts, they 



SERMONS. 



179 



were forced to seek enjoyment in the company of 
their neighbor ; became daily, perhaps half-daily visi- 
tors, and, by an easy process, settled down into item- 
mongers and gossipers ; for this was the natural con- 
sequence. The moment they discovered that their 
comfort materially depended on a walk to a friend's 
house in the neighborhood, they felt under impera- 
tive obligations to administer of such things as they 
had to his or her entertainment. How, otherwise, 
make sure of a steady welcome ? And it is a well- 
known fact, that, however sensible people despise 
these little busy hummers of society, they often listen 
to their stories with considerable gusto, provided they 
discover no indications of malignity, or what is called 
a bad heart. 

Leaving for the present these gnats of conversa- 
tion, who buzz, but inflict no venomous wound, I pro- 
ceed to take notice of a more hateful class, with 
which society is cursed in too great abundance. I 
mean those, who, actuated by natural spite and malev- 
olence, interfere with their neighbors only to produce 
mischief, — inventing and carrying about the most 
atrocious stories, with their whole souls endeavoring 
to blow up the coals of contention between friends 
and relatives, — the father against the son, and son 
against the father ; the husband against the wife, and 
the wife against the husband. How any in human 
form, above all, how any professing discipleship to 
the loving Jesus, can delight in such infernal accom- 
plishments, is difficult to explain. But the fact is 
unquestionable that there are such officious demons, 
perhaps with smiling faces and silvery tongues, who 



180 



SERMONS. 



scarcely seem to take pleasure in anything beneath 
the sun, except in sowing suspicion and enmity in 
the bosom of confidence and tender affection. The 
worst of the matter is, these wretches too often suc- 
ceed in their attempts ; for the credulous, good- 
natured man, when he comes in contact with such an 
one, is ready to argue, " Surely, this worthy person 
speaks out of pure honesty and particular regard for 
me. Why else should he concern himself? It is 
none of his business." And thus, for the very reason 
that should induce him to abhor the venomous crea- 
ture, lift it up, and cast it out of the door or window, 
he takes it to his confidence and becomes its victim. 

Under the same head we place those, who, though 
not directly with the view of sundering the ties of 
friendship and intimacy, but from a censorious and 
fault-finding spirit in general, occupy much of their 
spare time and discourse in condemning their breth- 
ren, and passing uncharitable judgments on their con- 
duct. Is a man of a free, sprightly temperament, — 
he shall be called loose, without fixed principles, and 
probably a debauchee. Is he a devout observer of 
all religious duties, — he is pronounced a canting 
hypocrite ; if in some of his theological opinions he 
does not keep in the groove exactly marked out by 
his censor's creed and catechism, he is a heretic 
and concealed deist. If John comes neither eating 
nor drinking, they say he has a devil ; if Jesus comes 
eating and drinking, then the cry is, " Lo, a glutton, 
a wine-bibber, and a companion of sinners." So dif- 
ficult, not to say impossible, is it for even the most 
innocent not to fall under the lash of men whose un- 



SERM QJSTS. 



181 



charitableness is always awake and on the watch. 
These are they who will never suffer any man's com- 
mendation to pass by them without ripping up some- 
thing or other to his disadvantage ; or at least misin- 
terpreting the motives of those of his good actions 
the goodness of which they cannot impugn. If you 
ever hear them begin to praise any themselves, pre- 
pare to hear at the close some ill-natured exception, — 
a disparaging " but" that overthrows all the eulogy 
that went before. Justly are their tongues com- 
pared by the Psalmist to a sharp razor, which, when 
most smooth and oily, cuts the keener, and gives the 
deeper wound. 

There is another description of persons who vio- 
late the precept in our text, namely, those who, from 
an overweening conceit of their own wisdom are ex- 
tremely forward to give advice to all they meet, and 
will needs understand more of a man's business than 
himself. Uninvited they obtrude themselves on his 
attention, undertaking to prescribe as if they were 
his physicians, to arbitrate as if they were his judges. 
That we are all, in a certain sense and with proper 
limitations, our brother's keeper is a certain truth. 
Even Cain could not assert the contrary but in the 
way of an interrogation. That we are to do every- 
thing in our power to secure his well-being is part of 
that great social law which binds man to man. But 
this is entirely different from that pragmatical spirit 
we are speaking of. We have no right to consider 
our wisdom so divinely superior to. the wisdom of 
others that we are entitled to interfere on every occa- 
sion with their plans and purposes. The true name 

16 



182 



SEEM ONS. 



of this temper is miserable vanity, not brotherly kind- 
ness and affection. Much less may we break down 
the rules of courtesy established by society in order 
to tell our neighbor what we think of him. Too often 
has the violation of this canon of conduct by ig- 
norant zeal occasioned evils which the utmost pru- 
dence could not repair. 

We have thus enumerated four classes of persons 
who transgress the precept given in our text ; and, 
going back upon our steps, we shall offer a few con- 
siderations, to each respectively, which, if well ap- 
plied, may serve as a remedy to the pestilent humor 
we are exposing. 

In the first place, as to those whom we pronounced 
the most excusable, namely, your vain and trifling 
spirits, who, as an offset to their want of wisdom, put 
in the plea of freedom from bad intention, they must 
have a care lest they imagine themselves entirely 
innocent. They are not innocent ; for they degrade 
the dignity of their natures, and prostitute the noble 
powers of reason and imagination to the most igno- 
ble uses. Consider, my good-humored, story-telling 
friend, that you were made for something better than 
to fetch and carry for the vain curiosity of fools. You 
say you mean no harm. Well, you don't. But how 
do you know that those, who drink in your endless 
prattle with such evident pleasure, are equally harm- 
less in their purposes, and equally indisposed to make 
them serve a base end ? A shrewd bad man does not 
need for certain purposes a better instrument than 
a loquacious fool. Remember, also, that, light and 
trifling as you may think your conduct, yet in those 
most exact scales in which God weighs all the actions 



SERMONS. 



183 



and words of men, even lightness and vanity shall be 
found ponderous. Reflect, also, on the solemn decla- 
ration of the wise man : " In the multitude of words 
there wanteth not sin ; " and the declaration of the 
great Master himself : " I say unto you that every idle 
word that men shall speak they shall give account 
thereof in the day of judgment." 

As to what concerns the second class, namely, the 
malicious whisperers and sowers of strife, it is quite 
superfluous to show the greatness of their criminality, 
since they are universally condemned by the voice of 
God and man. Such is its loathsome nature, that an 
express law concerning it was incorporated in the Le- 
vitical code, and the violation of which stands in im- 
mediate connection with the crime of murder : " Thou 
shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy 
people, neither shalt thou stand against the blood of 
thy neighbor ; " and the apostle ranks whisperers and 
sowers of strife in the black list of those whom God 
gives over to a "reprobate mind, to do the things 
which are not convenient," and which those who do, 
are worthy of death. Well would it be for these 
assassins and incendiaries of society, if they gave such 
warnings the consideration they merit, — if they 
asked themselves what reception they expect from the 
God of peace and order, who, all their lives, as far as 
their bitter tongues could influence, have been pro- 
moting confusion, variance, and every evil work ? 

We pass on to the next; those who, though not 
intentionally, or deliberately malignant, are open to 
the general charge of being uncharitable, censorious, 
fond of intermeddling with their neighbor for no other 



184 



SERMONS. 



purpose but to spy out his faults and " pronounce " 
harsh decisions on his conduct. To these sir oracles 
I put the question, by what right they seat themselves 
on the throne of the Judge of all the earth, and issue 
forth maledictions before the time ? Who are ye that 
judge another man's servant ? Let him alone. To 
his own master he stands or falls. Why judge ye 
your brother, for ye shall all stand before the judg- 
ment-seat of Christ. This is a reflection that cannot 
sink too deeply. Pronouncing, without a call of ne- 
cessity, judgment upon others, is entering on a busi- 
ness which does not belong to us. Ah ! is it not enough 
that the sinner, if impenitent, will receive a condem- 
ning sentence from Him whose right it is to pass it ? 
Shall we, exposed to the same scrutiny, anticipate the 
dreadful doom that may fall equally on us both ? 

This suggests the question whether these indignant 
accusers are sure of their own spotless innocence. 
Are their hands so clean, that they dare to rigidly 
arbitrate over a single child of Adam ? What man, 
acquainted with his own character, will dare to set 
up a tribunal over the worst of his race ; or, if he dare, 
what manner of person ought he to be in all godli- 
ness and honesty ? Let it be considered, moreover, 
that when our critics are persuading themselves that 
they have found holes and blemishes in their neigh- 
bor's garment of righteousness, they may be entire 
strangers to the merits of the case. It is seldom that 
a carper can reach the truth in any instance, and 
is therefore qualified to judge. Indeed, he seldom 
wants to know it. Having set his heart on a snarl, 
he marks only a few outward appearances, and rushes 



SERMONS. 



185 



to the desired conclusion at once ; not reflecting that 
possibly, on a more thorough examination, appear- 
ances would be found altogether deceptive. How 
many are the errors of conduct which, by an ill- 
tempered, self-constituted inquisitor, are viewed and 
spoken of with the sternest disapprobation ; yet turn 
out, when well sifted, to be mere venial offences, pro- 
ceeding from education, the force of circumstances, 
ignorance, or bodily infirmity. You call, for instance, 
that young man who has just passed you in the street 
a thoughtless, giddy worldling, destitute of all relig- 
ious principle, and most undoubtedly in the broad 
way that leads to destruction. You are sure of all 
this, because you have it from good authority that 
when he visits the great city he occasionally goes to a 
theatre and sometimes patronizes a dance. Now you 
are perfectly welcome, if it seems good, to query 
whether his standard of piety is quite so high as 
could be wished. But you must go not a jot farther. 
It is not for you and me to make saints and devils 
at our pleasure. That young man may have had an 
imperfect religious training. He may, during the 
important period when habits are permanently formed, 
have been far removed from examples of rigid non- 
conformity to the world. He may never have heard 
one expression of disapprobation breathed on the 
subject of these indulgences by any whom he was in 
the habit of respecting. In short, a thousand circum- 
stances of defence might be alleged, with which you, 
his officious judge, are not acquainted. Thus stands 
the case, then, between you and him. You have so 
far been a meddler in the concerns of your neighbor, 

16* 



186 



SERMONS. 



as to become his accuser ; whereas, had you carried 
your investigations a little further, and proved a more 
thorough-going busy-body, you would have been in- 
clined to the mildest and most generous construction. 

Next, you meet a man singularly unprepossessing 
in his appearance. You mark something sinister 
in his eye and whole expression, which reminds 
you of a felon whom you a long time ago saw 
upon a gallows. You tell your companion that you 
would not meet that fellow on a dark night in the 
public road for a large estate. Such is the casket. 
Open it and you find a jewel there of which Christ has 
few more bright in his earthly crown. He is in con- 
stant communion with holy thoughts and heavenly 
aspirations. His heart beats warmly to God and man ; 
and, if not distinguished by deeds of charity, it is be- 
cause the poor soul stands himself in need of them. 
So, judge, it seems that you are again mistaken. 

Yonder is a female whom, from some striking 
peculiarity of dress, you take to be a daughter of 
vanity, — lost to all sentiments but those of pride and 
self-admiration ; absorbed in the frivolous gayeties 
and pleasures of the world. It is impossible for you 
to think well of her in such a garb. Now it is 
not contended that you have no right, as a question 
of taste, to discuss people's dress, or criticise their 
hats and ear-rings ; though you might better leave 
them to the judgment of the milliner and goldsmith. 
But we do insist, that, before taking the trouble of 
uttering one damnatory sentence on the wearer, in 
point of religion, morals, or even good sense, you re- 
view all the circumstances that might be pleaded 



SERMONS. 



187 



in her defence by an intelligent advocate. What if 
it were made to appear, that, from her earliest years, 
she has been habituated to the mode of dressing and 
degree of ornamentation which you disapprove ; that 
the difference between it and your wife's is not 
so great as the difference between your means ; that, 
so far from indulging the pride and intoxication you 
impute to her, she really feels less than many, of 
whom you judge favorably, — your own daughter, for 
instance. In fine, what if it could be made to ap- 
pear, that, at the very time you were condemning her 
in your soul as a gaudy, gilded fool, she, all uncon- 
scious, was trembling under the thought of being a 
naked, helpless sinner before God ; and that from a 
heart bursting with agony was rising up to heaven 
the silent prayer, " Lord, be merciful to me a sinner " ? 
Oh, you say, if all this could be fairly made out, I 
would retract. But how do you know that it could 
not be made out ? Plainly you own yourself a stranger 
to the matter under adjudication ; and how dare you 
offer conjectures founded on equivocal appearances 
as decisions on character and destiny ? Let me affec- 
tionately exhort you, in the pithy language of the 
text, " to study to be quiet and do your own busi- 
ness," leaving your neighbor in the hands of Him 
who searches the heart, and judges righteously. 

With regard to those, in the fourth place, who, on 
all occasions, are so free with their advice and 
counsel, I ask them to reflect what an insupportable 
pride and arrogance it is, to reckon themselves wiser 
than anybody else, and to think no man capable 
of rowing his own boat unless they are sitting at the 



188 



SERMONS. 



helm. For, however they pretend that their offi- 
ciousness proceeds from good nature and benevolence, 
we will find, on examination, that the true motive 
is that we have assigned. Such, at least, is the con- 
struction put upon it by the general voice of man- 
kind. It would also be seasonable to put to them- 
selves the same question which the pestered old 
man, in an ancient poem by Terence, puts to an over- 
kind neighbor who would force his opinion on him. 
" Have you so much leisure from your own affairs, 
that you must be quite idle unless you take care 
of mine ? " Let them attend further to this con- 
sideration. Either their kind counsel will be fol- 
lowed, or it will not. If not, — which is most likely, 
what thanks have they ? They have only the morti- 
fication to find themselves treated according to their 
probable deserts, — as idle interlopers, whose opinion 
is as weak as it is presumptuous ; and this, as I have 
said, is the common result. But grant it adopted. 
Then, he is fairly responsible for the consequences. 
Now, it is morally impossible that he who is always 
busy, and projecting for himself or for others, should 
invariably succeed. If it be his own business that 
miscarries, he can forgive himself, and is entitled 
to our sympathy ; but if, without a call, and without 
occasion, he has been pressing his counsel on a friend, 
and thereby brought him into a tight place, is it not 
perfectly reasonable that he bear not only all the 
blame, but all the damage, too ? 

I allow that this argument is inapplicable to that 
sort of officiousness which relates to religion; there 
no disappointment nor damage can follow from ad- 



SERMONS. 



189 



hering to good advice. But there are evils of another 
kind which deserve to be well thought of by those 
good men who affect a general care of souls. It can- 
not be denied, for instance, that when one takes upon 
himself gratuitously the office of an exhorter, he 
holds forth something like an exhibition of his own 
superior wisdom and piety. He may not be aware 
that such an impression is produced ; but so it 
actually is, however far from his intention. Con- 
nected with this is the suspicion that in his friendly 
admonitions there is involved a direct comparison 
between himself and the person whom he desires 
to benefit. Now, there are few who can meekly bear 
a comparison entirely to their disadvantage ; much 
less when made by the party on whose side the ad- 
vantage lies. If not disposed to rise np indignant 
against his claims, they at least think it intolerable in 
him to advance them in their very teeth, and thus, 
in the outset, a principle of resistance is called np 
which effectually bars the intended good. Nor can it 
be concealed that the adviser, unless eminent by 
weight of character, exposes himself to disagreeable 
suspicions as to the purity of his motives. Why, 
reasons the other party,, have we been selected from 
the whole host of mankind to be the objects of his 
benevolent regard? What has put him in such a 
tremble for our particular souls ; when there are 
so many souls all around, in whom, it might be sup- 
posed, unless he had by-ends to answer, he would 
take a deeper interest ? 

I would recommend, therefore, to those who, in their 
pious zeal, are bent on the enterprise of reforming 



190 



SERMONS. 



one or more of the irnniortal beings in their vicinage, 
to weigh well the ground on which they stand, and 
remember the old proverb, " Look before you leap." 
Knowing the rooted prejudice against meddlers and 
busy-bodies, in the minds of most, let them wait for 
such a turn of events as will prevent their exposure to 
this imputation, and then they may proceed with all 
the vigor and fidelity the case demands. On the 
other hand, let them remember that precipitance will 
not only prove ruinous to their project, but, perhaps, 
draw down upon them no little mortification and dis- 
grace. The study and knowledge of human nature 
must never be neglected by one who seeks to do 
human nature good. In short, there are evils, and 
even wickedness in our neighbor which should be 
endured in silence, for the excellent reason that inter- 
ference will only make the matter worse. Above all, 
this is true when interference takes the form of de- 
nunciation. Few evil spirits have ever been cast out 
by scolding, even though conjoined with prayer. 

We shall bring our remarks to a close by summing 
up the whole matter in a single thought, with which, 
indeed, we have endeavored to make you already 
familiar. It is, that we have business enough, and 
more than enough, to occupy us, without seeking em- 
ployment abroad. Doubtless, this holds true in the 
lowest sense, — - in reference to the mere concerns ot 
the present life. But what are these when compared 
with preparation to meet a holy God, and the retribu- 
tion of eternity ? Here is a work which will try all 
our business activities, if we set about it in the right 
spirit. There are difficulties to be surmounted, evil 



SERMONS. 



191 



passions to be subdued, virtues to be acquired, tempta- 
tion to be overcome, which leave no room for a mo- 
ment's leisure to trespass on other men's fields of 
labor. In the name of the Lord, then, let us be up and 
doing, — for ourselves. There is no time to interfere 
with our fellow-servants, for our own work is not 
done, nor will be till we are summoned to the reward. 
Happy man is he who, persuaded of this, endeavors to 
prove himself faithful by the assiduous discharge of 
his duties, and constant watchfulness over his heart, 
from which are the issues of life. He pursues the 
even tenor of his way in peace and quietness. Tak- 
ing no part in the din and turmoil of the world be- 
yond the circle of social responsibilities, he makes 
steady advance in preparation for the solemnities of 
the judgment, and at last has the blessedness of find- 
ing his work done, and done well, because the doing 
it engrossed the undivided energies of his soul. Do 
you aspire after this blessedness ? Then listen to the 
exhortation of the apostle : " Study to be quiet, and 
do your own business," making " your calling and 
election sure." 



The Principal Thing. 



IX. 



THE PRINCIPAL THING. 



Proverbs 4:7. ©isbcm is i\z principal iljing. 



HE attentive reader of holy Scripture does not 
need being told that the leading word of our 
text is used to denote not wisdom in general, 
but the special branch of it which stands re- 
lated to our duties as creatures of God and expectants 
of future happiness. As to its nature, more particu- 
larly, the whole idea is expressed by that word with 
which we are so familiar, in theory at least, if not in 
practice, — "religion" — religion in its widest com- 
pass, including profound reverence for the Almighty 
Being who created us ; a cordial belief in the revela- 
tion given of his will, genuine repentance for sin, 
and universal self-dedication to the great purposes in 
view of which we have been placed in the world. It 
is, in short, the soul's outspoken consciousness of her 
higher nature and upward movement, on the wings 
of faith and love, to her immortal home. Various 
names are given it in Scripture, as the fear of the 
Lord, a new heart, the incorruptible seed, the wisdom 
that cometh from above. Its transforming influence 
extends like a potent medicine to all the powers of the 
soul. In the understanding, it is a change in our per- 




196 



SEEM ONS. 



ceptions, opinions, and reasonings concerning spiritual 
objects ; in the conscience, it is a lively, tender sensi- 
tiveness regarding moral obligation ; in the judg- 
ment, it is an approbation of the things which are 
most excellent ; in the will, it is an entire concurrence 
with the divine, — the result of all of which is pro- 
gressive holiness in temper and conduct. Our text 
speaks of it as one thing, because, whatever may be 
its particular modification, it is always " one " sacred 
principle of divine life. As the body has many mem- 
bers, and yet is but one body ; as a tree has many 
branches, and yet, with all its magnificence of fruit 
and foliage, is but one tree ; as mankind consists of 
various races, and yet there is but one human nature, 
— so religion is a blessed unity, a universal soul- 
vitality, evincing itself variously, and in unequal 
degrees, but never out of harmony with itself. 

I proceed now to show that this one thing is the 
principal thing. It is not a convenience, adding 
simply to our comfort,. with which we can dispense, 
or for the want of which we can compensate by in- 
genious substitutes ; it is not a mere sentimental 
luxury, like the gratification of our taste for literature, 
or the beauties and sublimities of nature, or the 
products of ingenious art. Religion is more than all 
this. It is a necessity, compared with which all other 
necessities shrink into utter insignificance ! And the 
fact can be made clearly to appear, by comparing it 
with the various other objects to which worldly men 
are inclined to give the preference. What are they ? 
That which occurs most readily to thought is an 
ample abundance of the wherewithal to answer the 



SEEMONS. 



197 



importunate and ever-pressing question : " What shall 
I eat ? " etc. ; in other words, a prosperous, worldly 
condition, a well-secured income, that will not only 
keep the wolf from the door, but place at command 
all the innocent luxuries and refinements of civilized 
life. It would be extreme affectation to say that these 
things are unimportant, and do not enter into a wise 
man's estimate of happiness. A care to provide 
comfortable support for ourselves and dependents is 
not only allowable and wise, but sternly obligatory 
on the conscience. Indeed, so far is religion from 
countenancing sloth, and a wilful neglect of the 
means for improving, within reasonable limits, our 
earthly condition, that it rules a man of this char- 
acter out of the church, pronouncing, " that he has 
denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." 

But surely the value of these objects of pursuit 
is only relative and comparative. They take their 
denomination of " necessary " merely from their ref- 
erence to the present earthly existence ; are not in- 
dispensable to the divine principle within us that 
aspires after celestial pleasures. We may be strait- 
ened in outward circumstances, — houseless, friend- 
less, at a loss for daily food, — yet possess the true 
riches ; our bodies clothed in rags, and yet our spirits 
(the true man within us) arrayed in heavenly attire. 
The poor earthly tabernacle in which we sojourn for 
a night, rather than can be said to dwell in, may be 
broken up and perish for want of common sustenance, 
and yet the immortal inhabitant be fed with living 
bread, — have meat to eat that passers-by know not of, 
and well might envy, Or, is a highly cultivated intel- 

17* 



198 



SERMONS. 



lect enriched with all the treasures of ancient and 
modern science, the principal thing ? That it ranks 
high among human distinctions cannot be doubted. 
An acquaintance with human nature, and G-od's 
nature, — in the midst of which we are placed to sur- 
vey it, and adore the glorious Author, — a knowledge 
of the history of the world and the dependencies of 
things around us, are admirable accomplishments, 
investing the possessor with a grace and dignity that 
raise him far above the level of those not so favored. 
Nor is the benefit derived from them inconsiderable. 
They minister in every way to our comfort and happi- 
ness. Nothing more true than the adage, of which the 
epoch in which we live furnishes so many wonderful 
illustrations, knowledge is power. 

But, notwithstanding, mental accomplishment is 
not the principal thing. We see it confirmed by 
every hour's observation of what passes around us, 
that a man may be wholly rude and uncultivated, and 
yet be both a good, and a happy man, a useful 
member of society, and a joyful expectant of future 
blessedness. Nay, it is possible, and not very rarely 
happens, that men of extraordinary abilities and 
attainments are destitute, not only of the grace of 
God, but common integrity and an average share 
of happiness. These things can never give either 
peace or purity to the conscience ; they can never 
hush the cry of the soul after something better. 
Many a sage philosopher, whom science ranks among 
her demigods, may look with envy on the poor old 
domestic, who makes his broth, and whose learning 
does not extend a hair beyond. He can measure the 



SERMONS. 



199 



size and distance of the planets ; explain all the 
wonders of chemistry and magnetism ; pursue a 
mathematical problem to heights never before trod 
by human genius, and with all this, ignorant of the 
true end of life, he may, in God's estimation, be a very 
fool. The old woman, scarcely able to spell her way 
through the first chapter of John, may have unlocked 
there treasures of wisdom which our Solomon never 
dreamed of, and which elevate her so far above him 
that they can hardly be deemed to partake in a 
common nature. 

Another blessing, which ranges high among the 
desirables, is a robust physique, a frame all compact, 
of sinew, bone, and muscle, with well-strung nerves, 
— a vigorous circulation of rich oxygenated blood, a 
good digestion that says to disease, " Aha ! " when 
it cometh, and leaps up from its occasional prostra- 
tion like a giant refreshed with wine. Well, earth, 
mere earth, has nothing that should be more earnestly 
coveted. " Without a sound mind in a sound body," 
as the ancient philosophers expressed it, a bound- 
less command of the means of sublunary enjoyment 
could not impart even the mockery of happiness. 
Cast the greatest monarch in the world on his bed, 
under a lingering, painful complaint, from which 
there is little prospect of recovery, and ask his 
meanest scullion whether he would exchange situa- 
tions with him. " Exchange with such a wretch ! " 
would be the reply. " I, with my warm blood dancing 
merrily through every artery and vein, feeling an 
elastic spring in every joint, eating the dryest crust 
with appetite and relish, sleeping my nine hours, 



200 



SERMONS. 



every night, without so much as once turning over 
on the other side ! No ; a thousand kingdoms would 
not tempt me to parley a moment with the thought." 
Beyond a doubt, health is a blessing of priceless 
value. Of all the cases of self-murder I have read 
of, the most excusable (if the epithet may ever be 
applied to a crime so unnatural) is that of an 
unhappy man, who, suffering from a malignant cancer 
which the physician pronounced incurable, immedi- 
ately retired to a chamber and blew out his brains. 
Yet, even health is not the principal thing. A man 
may enjoy it to the end of his finger-nails without 
being happy. There are even those to whom it is an 
unmitigated curse, in consequence of its abuse. The 
talent was employed in gratifying the lowest sensual 
propensities. Their strength was given up to indul- 
gences which put out the eyes of their understanding, 
corrupted all that was pure in their affections, and 
seared the conscience as with a red-hot iron ; so that 
at the close of their career, they were ready to ex- 
claim, " Oh, that I had never enjoyed a day of health 
in my life. Continued sickness would have saved me 
from the most dreadful of calamities to which I am 
now a hopeless victim." 

Observation, also, teaches that true piety is an ef- 
fectual substitute for bodily health when it is wanting. 
Some of us have seen persons afflicted with such 
terrible forms of disease that we wondered how it 
was that they did not, like Job, curse the day on 
which they were born ; yet, enabled by divine grace 
to bear up under their sufferings with the sweetest 
patience and heavenly serenity. They were blessed 



SERMONS. 



201 



with seraphic visions, — talked with angels, and held 
ravishing communion with their Saviour at the very 
time every fibre was racked with agony. Some time 
since, a poor man died near Boston, whom the news- 
papers described as having laid thirty years on his 
back, in a state of helplessness and torment almost 
incredible. During the whole period he was unable 
to raise a hand. He could not move himself on his 
bed, nor masticate his food, — a thin liquid, sucked in 
by his lips, being all that supported nature. Every 
day lie was seized with spasms which convulsed his 
whole frame so fearfully that the spectacle could not 
be endured, and visitors were obliged to leave the 
room. Yet, in the midst of all, he was continually 
praising God for his unspeakable mercy ; — declaring 
to those around, how happy he was in the opportunity 
of glorifying the grace of that Saviour who had 
plucked him, a poor worthless brand, from the 
burning. He died in the triumph of Christian faith, 
and went joyfully up to the blessed land where the 
inhabitant shall no more say " I am sick." 

Character, or the good esteem of mankind, is 
another of earth's pleasant plants. A generous mind 
feels a noble satisfaction in being highly appreciated, 
especially by the wise and good. But how often is 
the passion carried far beyond its due limitation. To 
be exalted above the common level, — to be deemed 
great, talented, honorable, — to have one's name 
in every mouth, and, perhaps, trumpeted in every 
newspaper, — many account the topmost bough in the 
tree of human felicity. Alas, how sad the deception ! 
What vain shadows and froth-bubbles are all the 



202 



S£BMONS. 



honors of this transitory scene, when estimated at 
what they are truly worth. A good name may be 
better, as the wise man tells us, than precious oint- 
ment ; but he never tells us that it is the " principal 
thing." One may possess it, and yet be eminently 
unhappy. On the other hand, though it be enviously 
withheld, he may enjoy the most placid composure 
and peace within. We know who has left, as a legacy 
to his followers, this remarkable beatitude : "Blessed 
are ye when all men speak evil of you." 

We note, finally, the pleasures of love and friend- 
ship. We are made for society, and could not live 
without its solace. The happiness of heaven con- 
sists in its perfection. Friendship is a firm barrier 
against many evils, by providing us with counsel and 
reproof, assistance and sympathy. He who has a 
judicious and faithful adviser, though he ranks with 
the meanest of mankind, is happier than the throned 
monarch, who, surrounded with obsequious courtiers 
(not friends), shines in all the pomp and splendor of 
lonely greatness. What is true of friendship in its 
restricted sense applies to all the kindly affections 
that bind man to man, — the love of parents and 
children, husband and wife ; love of country, and the 
godlike principle of general benevolence that takes 
in all intelligent beings. The happiness springing 
from these sweet charities of life is pure as well 
as exalted, and they are so often called into exercise 
by the routine of daily duty that they may be said 
to form the main staple of human enjoyment. Hence, 
many are to be found, especially among the gentler 
and more finely attuned spirits, who build an altar to 



S ER MOMS. 



203 



the household deity exclusively, seeking happiness 
nowhere but in the bosom of domestic privacy, with 
the occasional society of a few friends united by con- 
genial tastes and opinions. Perhaps, of all plans to 
while away life without the aid of religion, this is the 
most plausible. But it will not do. Love and friend- 
ship are admirable gifts of Providence, but they are 
not "the principal thing." The objects of our regard, 
however dear, may deceive us ; if not deceive, sadly 
disappoint, and from one moment to another we 
tremble lest they be violently torn from our embrace. 
There are a thousand external ills which flesh is 
heir to, where affection speaks in vain ; much less 
can it heal the spirit broken by a sense of sin. 
On the other hand, there have been those, who, de- 
prived of all endearing connections, have yet en- 
joyed divine pleasures, living in the light of His 
countenance whose smile can irradiate the darkest 
dungeon. 

We shall extend no further this comparative 
view, but proceed to enforce it (perhaps at the risk 
of a little repetition), by pointing out how truly 
unhappy the man, who prefers the world to religion, 
is in all conditions, particularly these three : first, 
a good one, or what he deems such ; second, a bad 
one, which is really such ; third, his condition when 
he must, however reluctantly, meet his summons to 
appear before the Divine tribunal. 

Suppose, first, all his schemes succeed according to 
his wishes. He rolls in wealth, is honored with 
offices of power and trust, has numerous friends and 
dependents, among whom he disports himself like 



204 



SERMONS. 



leviathan among the minnows. His ample resources 
place within his reach all the gratifications so agreea- 
ble to his sensual nature. There he is, flourishing 
like a green bay tree ; and now will you say that this 
man is happy. I say, no ! Being unreconciled to 
God and holiness, his blessings become snares and 
pitfalls. His spreading branches only make him a 
broader target to the poisoned arrows of the tempter. 
Turn your eye from all this glare, and look into his 
heart. The depraved passions of human nature reign 
there without a check, — somewhat tamed it may be 
by circumstances and culture, still supreme. His 
abundance produces no content. He yields to his 
lusts, and yet his lusts are not satisfied, ever crying 
with the horse-leech, " Give, give." Thus, his ac- 
quisitions make him really poor, because they in- 
crease his desires. His pride, ambition, jealousy, 
covetousness, malevolence toward those who stand in 
his way, are all kept in a state of constant irritation. 
New temptations lead him captive to new sins. Se- 
rious thoughts, if he ever had any, fade away from 
the mind ; above all, thoughts of God and obligation. 
As the religious soul, by its habitual communing with 
pure and exalted ideas, grows itself more pure ; 
his, for the opposite reason, becomes more gross and 
earthy. He would like to carnalize the object of 
worship, to frame a conception of him, not as the 
high and holy One whom no man hath seen, nor can 
see, but as a huge, robust animal with a moral 
nature as low and unspiritual as his own, — like 
pagan Jupiter. Such is the tendency, the nature, and 
proper working, of unsanctified prosperity. Few 



SERMONS. 



205 



successfully resist its influence, or avoid drifting on 
the rocks to which they are carried by its fatal tide. 

Let us now reverse the scene, and look at our 
spoiled child of fortune when lying in the depths. 
He is stripped of his blushing honors, reduced to pov- 
erty, languishing under the pains and weaknesses 
of declining nature, deserted by those who formerly 
made the loudest professions of devoted attachment. 
How, in these circumstances, can he sustain himself? 
That by a constitutional stoicism he may be able, in 
some degree, to stifle the feelings of nature may 
be granted. But how is it possible he should enjoy 
a real inward serenity ? There is no divine bosom to 
which he can fly where he may quiet his sobs, no 
Providence to confide in, no divine aids to strengthen, 
no promise of better blessings to speak courage 
and gladness. Such a man, in the midst of the dark 
and thick tempest around him, must be of all men 
most miserable. 

Certainly, then, it would seem, that religion is the 
principal thing, — principal even for this world, chief 
in prosperity, yet more so in adversity ; chief in the 
sunshine and the dark cloudy day ; chief everywhere 
and always. The man of business, incessantly en- 
gaged in pursuits which occupy his thoughts and 
give him sensible pleasure, may be able to evade, 
in some degree, the force of what has been said, — 
avowing that he has not, in point of fact, expe- 
rienced that absolute indispensableness of piety con- 
tended for either in good or adverse fortune. There 
is another condition, however, on which he has not 
yet experimented. He must die. There is no es- 

18 



206 



SERMONS. 



caping from that inexorable law which ordains that 
dust must return to dust, and the spirit to the God 
who gave it. Yes, he must die, and what provision 
shall he make for his passage ? There are many, we 
are aware, who never ask the question ; whose innate 
stupidity puts them beyond the reach of all attempts 
to awaken reflection. This, however, is not com- 
monly the case ; and where there is a capability of 
looking steadily out on the prospect that spreads be- 
fore the imagination, especially when conscience is 
thoroughly roused, how pungent must be the agony. 
Some of us can speak on this subject from observa- 
tion. Perhaps we have stood by the bed of a de- 
parting man of the world whom death has surprised 
in the midst of his projects and pleasures.. His image 
is still before us, and his sad accents are tolling in 
our ears, whenever we abstract ourselves from the 
noisy din of our worldly occupations. " Every earthly 
scene is passing away from me. The bonds of nature 
are just dissolving ; and as to this vain mockery 
of life to which I have given my heart, my hopes, my 
all, I am already dead, — as dead, to all intents, as 
if to-morrow had come, and I were lying in my 
coffin ; and what have I to expect? To see the dawn- 
ing of a heavenly morning ? I dare not hope 
for it. God's mercies I have abused. I have slighted 
his warning, despised his grace, affronted the blessed 
Saviour, and I fear I am undone." How sad a specta- 
cle is this ! An immortal being going down into 
darkness, perishing under the blaze of the eternal 
gospel. In the midst of his strong cryings and tears, 
the curtain drops ; and upon the naked, helpless soul 



SERMONS. 



20T 



eternity pours all its tremendous realities. Ah, that 
awful word, eternity! We are swallowed up — we 
are lost in the idea. When millions of ages have 
rolled by, the undying spirit will be but commencing 
to exist ; and if, during its probation, deliberately un- 
faithful to solemn responsibilities, but commencing to 
pay the forfeiture. W e know little of the precise man- 
ner in which the law of retribution will be enforced ; 
the representations of Scripture on the subject being 
in the highest degree figurative. But surely enough 
is known to make the most thoughtless serious. 
Utterly rejecting the dogma of physical torture, it 
is impossible to doubt that there will be such ele- 
ments of unhappiness in constant activity as these : 
deprivation of all the enjoyments appropriate to our 
animal, and more especially our spiritual, nature ; 
abandonment to ungratified desires, and the rage 
of malevolent passions ; being cast out from the 
presence of God in the character of a friend, yet 
having him always before the eye as a judge, and, 
in a certain sense, though we do not like the ex- 
pression, as an enemy ; the writhing of an eternal re- 
morse, with the cutting reflection that nothing in this 
is arbitrary, — all is merited, and, according to the 
laws of moral order, inevitable. Let no one say that 
irreligious happiness can have any other ending than 
misery. The game may seem to open well ; appear- 
ances in its further progress may be highly flattering, 
and the pleased fool may think his adversary asleep. 
But he does not see the fatal defeat that is preparing 
for him ; how certainly he shall awake from his 
dream to the discovery that he has lost his all. " The 



208 



SERMONS. 



day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night ; for 
when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden 
destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a 
woman with child, and they shall not escape." 

There is a story told of an ancient heathen tyrant, 
which contains a moral suggestive of many serious 
thoughts on this subject. He had become remarka- 
ble, far and near, for the good fortune that at- 
tended all his enterprises, which puffed him up with 
the conceit that he was the special favorite of the 
gods. One day he, in the way of experiment, 
dropped a precious signet-ring in the sea, at a great 
distance from the land, which, sure enough, was 
brought back in safety on the following morning, — 
having been taken from the belly of a fish which had 
swallowed it, when in the act of sinking. His 
triumph was unbounded ; and, by his order, the 
strange occurrence was reported to all the neighbor- 
ing sovereigns. On being informed of the affair, his 
best ally, the king of Egypt, — a wise and thought- 
ful prince, — instantly renounced all intercourse with 
him, saying that his unparalleled prosperity could 
not but be an omen of some fearful catastrophe in 
which he and his people might be involved. It was, 
in his judgment, a thing not to be credited that 
Providence designed such felicity, especially in the 
case of a bad man, to be enduring. The prediction 
was soon verified. Calamity came upon him so tre- 
mendous and overwhelming that men's ears have 
tingled at the recital for the last two thousand years, 
and his name is one of the beacons of history. So 
shall it be with all the pride and pomp of those who, 



SERMONS. 209 

in their exaltation, give not God the glory. They 
are raised up to heaven that their fall may be the 
greater when he casts them down to hell. 

In closing, I beg you to weigh what has been said, 
with care and solemn deliberation. Our remarks 
have been neither sparkling nor profound ; but they 
are worthy of all regard for the subject's sake. You 
are, every one of you, immortal creatures, soon to 
account with the great Proprietor for the talents, 
whether one, two, or ten, which he has committed to 
you ; some of your number are undoubtedly stran- 
gers to that good jjart without which you are equally 
unfit to live and die. Be wise in time, and make 
yourselves acquainted with God, before he cause 
darkness. 

A word to the young. For you, also, religion is 
the principal thing. We have no interest to deceive 
you. No other motive can actuate us in urging its 
claims than regard to your true welfare. We do 
want you to live in the fear of the Lord. We want 
you to begin now ; because, we believe, he calls you 
to it now ; because he has given precious promises 
that they who seek him early shall find him, and 
because neither you nor I know whether an ex- 
tended opportunity will be afforded. Come, young 
friends, get up to the work of searching for the 
divine treasure. Listen to the voice of wisdom. Com- 
pare the decisions of Scripture with those of the 
oracle within you, — your own conscience, — and see 
how completely they accord. Balance the interests of 
this world with the interests of another ; retire to 

18* 



210 



SERMONS. 



your closets, and there, on bended knee, pray God 
that he may be found. So we would most heartily 
commend you to his boundless mercy in Christ, and 
the mighty influence of his grace and Spirit. 



Vain Thoughts. 



VAIN THOUGHTS. 



Jet. 4 : 14. jQofo long sfcall % bam %wgWs Iflifge foiil/m %e ? 



N these words the prophet compares the heart 
of man to a house of vulgar entertainment, 
where guests of every description congregate, 
except the respectable, and are permitted to 
revel without contradiction or control. These guests 
are vain, sinful thoughts, which, like so many drunk- 
en rowdies, are constantly coming in and going out, 
making it an eternal scene of confusion and riot. 
The indictment is a true one so long as the heart is 
unrenewed by the Spirit of God. We know it will 
be extremely difficult to impress this conviction on 
many minds. No small part of the evil charged is 
the soul's loss of moral sensibility, so that it cannot 
be made to see how dim and blighted a thing it is, 
compared with itself as it first came from the divine 
hand. Yet we think a careful attention to the 
workings of their own minds will convince the most 
sceptical that there is too much justice in the repre- 
sentation of the text. 

Our purpose is to give some illustrations of this 
subject. We shall not declaim ; and we shall pass 
over the more crimson sins of. thought, confining 



214 



SERMONS. 



ourselves to what the text calls their vanity ; ad- 
ducing such proofs as will appeal to the conscious- 
ness and experience of all. 

Our text needs little explanation. The word 
" vain " sometimes means, in the holy Scriptures, 
unprofitable. All is vain, says the wise man, because 
" there is no profit of them under the sun." This 
is, doubtless, one idea of the text. It sometimes 
means light, as in the phrase " lighter than vanity." 
This, also, may be predicated, for the most part, of 
our thoughts. They are destitute of all pith and 
solidity. Like Belshazzar's, the most profound and 
serious are weighed and found wanting. Occa- 
sionally it means frail, inconstant. This, also, ap- 
plies to them. They pass off and are forgotten, 
like froth-bubbles on the running stream. Lastly, 
vain is used for sinful. Thus, the wicked are called 
" vain sons of Belial." Such, too, is the prevailing 
character of our thoughts. They are disobedient to 
law, deflections from that most perfect rule which 
has respect to the inner man, and consequently ex- 
pose to the divine displeasure. 

These things premised, we enter on our topic, and 
observe, — 

First, that the vanity of the mind appears in a 
want of ability to extract devotion from the ordinary 
occurrences of life. The various dispensations of 
Providence are the appointed means of exciting 
within us j)ious emotion ; and the truly sanctified 
heart improves them to this end. Out of all God's 
dealings, all the objects presented, to be seen or 
enjoyed, it distils sweet and spiritual meditations. 



SERMONS. 



215 



So it was, no doubt, with our first parents before 
apostasy had closed upon them the gates of Para- 
dise. Walking among the loveliest scenes, the eye 
feasted with beauty, the ear enraptured with melody, 
— so far from surrendering themselves to epicurean 
and idle enjoyment, they continually ascended from 
nature up to nature's God. Whatever they saw 
and felt was his memento. The dew that glittered on 
the rose-bud, the leaves that adorned the trees, 
the grass that carpeted the earth, the flowers and 
the singing of birds, did not so much please the sense 
as elevate their pure souls to gratitude and praise. 
It was the same with him who in all things was the 
pattern for our imitation, the blessed Jesus. Every 
object and casual occurrence that attracted his at- 
tention during his various sojournings started some 
train of holy thought. Did he hear of the murdered 
Galileans, — melting with pity for the thoughtless 
sinners who were before him, he exclaims, " Except 
ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Does he en- 
counter a gathering of fishermen, — he invites them 
to be "fishers of men." Does he see a well, — he 
speaks of the water of everlasting life. Does he taste 
wine, — he looks forward to the new wine of his 
Father's kingdom. 

And this is the characteristic of every well-consti- 
tuted mind. As the bee sucks honey from the flow- 
ers, so from all events it gathers aliment for its 
spiritual nutrition ; changing, by a happy alchemy, 
the coarsest earth into gold, — "finding sermons in 
stones, and good in everything." On the contrary, 
look at the generality of men, ourselves, probably, 



216 



SERMONS. 



included. Is it not very plain that for the most part 
we look no further than a beast into the ways and 
workings of Providence; contenting ourselves with 
earthly satisfactions, without extracting from them one 
of those sacred uses for which they were certainly 
designed ? When, for instance, injuries and insults are 
offered us, instead of being led like David, in the 
case of Shimei, to the devout ejaculation, " The 
Lord may requite us good," how we instantly begin 
to indulge thoughts of retaliation ! When judg- 
ments befall men, — others, not ourselves, — instead 
of being led to serious reflection on the uncertainty 
of earthly things, and the danger of placing confi- 
dence in an arm of flesh, like Job's friends of old, 
we are found running out into heartless censures on 
the victim of calamity. When outward blessings are 
poured upon us, instead of rejoicing in their giver, 
we immediately enter into the self-colloquy, " Soul, 
thou hast much goods laid up for many years ; eat, 
drink, and be merry ; " and when calamity betakes 
us, instead of joining the man of Uz, in that most 
beautiful of all sentiments, " The Lord gave, and the 
Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the 
Lord," we take occasion to question the existence of 
a Providence, or impeach its justice. Are not these 
things strikingly corroborative of the truth we 
are impressing ? Surely there is something radically 
wrong in us, when we are so unskilful in the happy 
art of making the ordinary occurrences of life minis- 
ters of devotion. 

Secondly. The evil appears in a form still worse, in 
a positive unwillingness, a loathing to reflect with any 



SERMONS. 



217 



earnestness on serious themes. Like idle school-boys 
in the midst of their diversions, we entertain a secret 
horror at the thought of sitting down to the task 
befitting our immortal natures, of communing, for 
example, with our own spirits, and solemnly review- 
ing our actions, as probationers for eternity. Do you 
think this a little highly colored ? Well, then, try. 
Go shut yourselves up in a place of retirement, and 
endeavor to concentrate your thoughts on some re- 
ligious subject. Undertake to consider the solemn 
truth you have read or heard a few hours before, or 
to muse on some unexpected providence which has 
lately occurred in your neighborhood, with the view 
of improving it to your spiritual advantage ; you 
will find what, had the trial been made, would have 
been found long before, that your vain heart does not 
" like to retain God in its knowledge;" that it is only 
by the lash that it is induced to look him in the face. 

But, granting that the lash is applied, and that 
good thoughts are actually entertained, it is certain 
that the mind will not be long intent on them. On 
evil our meditations can dwell with surprising fixed- 
ness. Thus, " to devise froward things Solomon tells 
us a man shuts his eyes ; " that is, he bends to it the 
most wrapt attention. But not so in the other di- 
rection. Here, what unsteadiness, what interruption ! 
We are like the aforesaid school-boys called in from 
their diversions, and with their eyes screwed down 
on their task, while a thousand images dance through 
the mind in complicated confusion, like the dissolving 
scenes of a phantasmagoria. Take what precautions 
we may, our thoughts, like idle servants sent on an 

19 



218 



SERM ONS. 



important errand, are eternally excnrsioning to the 
right and left, occasionally coming back, only to start 
after some new vanity. Take a specimen in the house 
of God. Let us suppose that we have come here with 
a full purpose to honor divine institutions. The first 
stanza of the opening psalm solemnly impresses us, 
and, for a moment or two, we can say with David, 
" My heart is fixed, my heart is fixed ; Lord, I will 
sing." But alas ! before the completion of another, 
our truant spirits, like the fool's eyes, have gone to 
the ends of the earth. The like in prayer. You en- 
deavor, according to the Master's orders, to watch 
unto prayer ; to set, as it were, a watch at the door, 
that no disturbing thought may enter. Scarcely, 
however, are you fairly before the mercy-seat, when 
the harpies of idle imagination are polluting and de- 
vouring the sacrifice. 

Closely connected with this is another fact, that, 
even when the mind succeeds in thinking good things, 
with some considerable fixedness too, yet it does so 
in a disorderly way, with no regard to sequence and 
connection. What the wise man says of words is 
true of thoughts, — " Fitly disposed, they are apples 
of gold in pictures of silver." This was exemplified 
in our first parents, before their fall from integrity, 
and alivays in the great High Priest of our profes- 
sion. In them, not one of their thoughts was out of 
place. Like the stars of heaven, they were not only 
beautiful in themselves, but in their mutual har- 
mony, — each marching on in regular procession and 
in its own orbit. Not only were they intrinsically 
excellent, but, like good soldiers, none ever stepped 



SERMONS. 



219 



out of rank. How different with us, and our hearts ! 
View them in the duty adverted to a moment since, 
that of prayer. It is evident, that, in order to per- 
form the service acceptably, not only all secular ideas 
should be absent, but even that none of a devotional 
character find entrance, except those of a prayerful 
description ; such, I mean, as become a sinner on his 
bended knees. But scarce is the good man risen with 
the multitude to pray, than some pious anecdote is 
remembered, or some impressive sermon heard on a 
former occasion. While hearing the Word, instead 
of bending attention to the weighty truths now pre- 
sented, he thinks of the solemn prayer that went 
before, or, from something that is said, takes occasion- 
to cut loose from the messenger of God altogether, 
and think out, as it were, a sermon of his own. 

This evil, however, is more general, and has a 
wider range than that assigned to it in the preceding 
remarks. In other things, beside religion, the same 
disorderliness and love of eccentric movement are 
exhibited. The rapid transition from one object of 
thought to another, without regard to logical connec- 
tions, is not, in itself, positively sinful. But it is to 
be regulated by the fear of God and an enlightened 
conscience. A traveller is not always bound to keep 
the exact middle of the highway, but is a fool if he 
turns aside into every bog in pursuit of jack-o'-lan- 
terns. The mind, however, scorns these proper limi- 
tations, and glories in being a vagabond through 
God's creation. It passes from one thing to another, 
not because allied to each other, but apparently in 
the mere wantonness of power. Scarcely is it here, 



220 



SERMONS. 



when lifting up our eyes we see it gambolling among 
the sun, moon, and stars. We can compare it to 
nothing so well as to a man bowling along in an ex- 
press rail-car, at the rate of forty miles an hour, 
house after house, landscape after landscape rising 
up to view, and instantly retiring, as if they had not 
been seen. Now, we are criticising our neighbor's 
faults ; anon climbing an Egyptian pyramid ; at this 
moment picturing a scene of sensual enjoyment ; in 
that which follows, thinking of the next election, 
hatching a scheme of profit, or conjecturing the ap- 
pearance of the Emperor of China. It is character- 
istic of maniacs, that, though they undoubtedly ex- 
ercise reason, there is no connection between their 
thoughts, — all is incoherence and confusion, like the 
scrawl of a mischievous child. We who go at large 
have this advantage, that it is in our power to do 
three things which they cannot, — disguise our men- 
tal operations, dispose in a proper order our expres- 
sions, and, above all, control our voluntary actions. 
But could these operations be seen precisely as they 
are, as much nonsense would be found in them, 
sheer and perfect nonsense, as in the wildest ravings 
of the maniac. 

A fault opposed to this is the mind's too great 
intensity when under the influence of passion, — illus- 
trating the old adage, that extremes often meet. For 
example, when we encounter a disappointment, how we 
brood over every circumstance that occasioned it, and 
linger round the evil, though its consequences are ir- 
retrievable. The very uselessness of our reflections 
seems to give them a fascinating power over us. 



SERMONS. 



221 



When calamity is threatening, though yet at a dis- 
tance, to what gloomy musings does it give rise. How 
the heart meditates on terror ! The little cloud, no 
bigger than a man's hand, we magnify, by exaggerat- 
ing fancy, into the precursor of a second Noah's del- 
uge ; and the affliction of to-morrow we contrive to 
double by making it the affliction of to-day. The like 
with ungratified desire. How intensely do we long 
for the completion of our wishes ! Scarcely is our 
pillow visited with sound sleep till we enter on the 
hoped-for enjoyment ; so that often when it actually 
arrives, it has lost its charm, and we suffer the pains 
and disgusts of satiety before possession. 

Tiie vanity of the mind, in the next place, evinces 
itself and its workings by an idle and unprofitable 
curiosity ; a morbid hankering after the knowledge 
of matters in which we have no interest or concern. 
What, indeed, is the most of what the world formerly 
called learning, but a plausible form of this moral 
disease ? What are the most of those profound meta- 
physical and transcendental speculations, which are 
still so much admired in certain circles, but " oppo- 
sitions of science, falsely so called," ingeniously ab- 
surd conjectures about things beyond the compre- 
hension of the human intellect ? Admirably well are 
these cobwebs of the brain described by the apostle 
Paul, as " old wives' fables," invented to satisfy the 
cravings of children after something wonderful, and 
in fact unknown. 

The same prurient curiosity is exemplified in the 
course of reading which many pursue, especially our 
youth. I do not pass an unqualified condemnation 

19* 



222 



SEBJIONS. 



on all our books of fiction. A good selection of 
them, used in moderation, may be read with advan- 
tage to the understanding and the heart. But there 
is a large number, and those, unfortunately, the 
most popular with a numerous class of readers, which 
are little better than spiced carrion, abounding in 
pernicious maxims, false views of life, and pruri- 
ent descriptions thinly hidden under mawkish senti- 
mentalities, — unredeemed by the least exhibition of 
fancy, wit, or knowledge of human nature. Even 
the delicate female sometimes contracts a taste for 
such offals, and may be found poring at the midnight 
hour over pages she would not venture to read 
under the eye of a parent or a Christian friend. 
Such is the power over her of that horse-leech, 
depraved curiosity, crying, " give, give," that the 
silly young creature denies herself natural rest in 
the employment of corrupting her imagination, in- 
flaming her passions, and destroying her native pu- 
rity of sentiment. 

The same curiosity is displayed by many in their 
desire to know the secrets of those around them. 
How anxious are they to get the full measure of 
their neighbor's faults, to become acquainted with 
their pecuniary circumstances, and the least of their 
family arrangements ! If some vague rumor to their 
disparagement be in the wind, how eagerly do they 
snuff it up, and eagerly impart it to brother and 
sister gossips, — agonizing in all the pains of parturi- 
tion till the deliverance be accomplished ! " Did you 
ever hear that?" What magic in these five little 
words, intoned with the emphasis befitting the sub- 



SEEMONS. 



223 



ject and the occasion ! How do they make the heart 
of the auditor palpitate, rouse the sleeping blood, 
and spread over her cheek the flush of delighted at- 
tention ! How many bursts of eloquence But 

the subject is too solemn for irony. How many 
reputations have they murdered, and hearts have 
they broken ! Into how many fountains of domes- 
tic happiness have they poured the venom of hell ! 

Another exemplification of our subject, ■ — the van- 
ity of the thoughts, — is concocting schemes for 
satisfying unlawful, at least exorbitant, desires, — 
u taking thought," as the apostle expresses it, "to ful- 
fil the lusts of the flesh." Would men be rich, — 
wonderful are the pains they take to study out all 
the arts and tricks of the world for this purpose ; 
often not scrupling, in their calculations, oppression 
and fraud. Indeed, it is this kind of mental ap- 
plication which gives the only evidence to us that 
some people have a soul. The speaker knew a man 
in his youth who, as was universally believed, on the 
strongest evidence (that of his wife and his physician), 
to have died of brain fever caused by a month's pre- 
vious sleeplessness and nervous prostration. These 
had their origin in a fearful expenditure of intel- 
lectual energy on the question, how he could extort 
an additional bonus of three hundred dollars for a 
farm he had sold, but had not yet signed all the 
papers. The mental strain was too great for his frail 
tabernacle, and the brain succumbed ! Would men 
rise to political distinction, — how carefully do they 
provide the ladder and count the steps ! This man 
shall receive a consideration ; that man's character 



224 



SERMONS. 



shall be spotted ; this opponent will probably fall by 
his own weight ; that one shall be removed by man- 
agement. Tims is that superb intellect, designed by 
the Creator to hold communion with himself and all 
that is great and glorious in his universe, made an 
ignoble pimp to the lusts of its possessor ! 

Once more ; the vanity of the mind shows itself in 
performing on the theatre of imagination those freaks 
and follies, not to say gross sins, which, from the cir- 
cumstances of the case, cannot be performed actu- 
ally. It often happens, that, our desires wanting 
opportunity for real gratification, fancy takes pencil 
in hand, and gives a sort of dramatic picture of it. 
We all go to the theatre, and have free tickets, for we 
are both the authors and actors, and the play is car- 
ried on in our own house. Take, for instance, the 
poor man. His delight is to imagine himself rich, 
and then to scheme plans of pleasure, erect castles in 
the air, the admiration of a thousand imaginary be- 
holders. The rich man dreams, in his turn, of a chair 
of state. The young man relieves the tedium of 
standing all day behind the counter by the dream that 
he is a soldier, trampling on the bodies of hundreds 
whom he has slain by the prowess of his single arm ; 
honored with the baton of field-marshal and the 
hand of some illustrious princess. We give those 
merely as cases. They may not be yours. But there 
is not an individual in this assembly, except those 
saved from it by a natural stolidity, who has not 
his day-dreams and planted some fool's paradise to 
walk in. 

A vanity connected with this is the fondness for 



SERMONS. 



225 



thinking over our many excellences and endowments, 
— counting, studying, admiring them. How much of 
that priceless riches, time, is spent just in saying, to 
one's self of course, How rich I am, how fine, how 
respectable ! How many little Nebuchadnezzars are 
there in our cities who do nothing, and think of 
nothing but walking through the streets, lifting up 
their eyes to each of the big houses they have ac- 
quired, and saying, " Is not this the Babylon that I 
have built?" " 

This vanity appears in the many fond expectations 
entertained concerning the future. Thus with the 
class of men spoken of by Isaiah, — " To-morrow shall 
be as this day and yet more abundant ; " and those 
described by James, — " To-morrow we shall go to 
such a city, and buy and sell, and get gain." So 
with many in our day : no sooner do they open 
their eyes to behold the sun, than they commence 
their plans ; — not plans of duty, but pleasure: To- 
day, I will close a bargain, and foreclose a mortgage ; 
to-morrow, I will give a dinner ; on the day after, I 
will take advice concerning laying out my new coun- 
try-seat. And thus they endeavor to obtain a pres- 
ent happiness from the anticipation of future en- 
joyment, like thoughtless heirs before the legacy is 
due. In this way the generality of men pass their 
lives. Yam in their imaginations, and their foolish 
hearts being darkened, they take no note of the 
shortness of time. They do not look at the unut- 
terably solemn realities which are perhaps waiting 
for them at the corner of the next street. Suddenly, 
in the midst of the farce, — for what else can such 



226 



SA'BMONS. 



a life be called, — they are cut down, and — where 
are they? oh! where? 

From the subject discussed we draw two reflec- 
tions, which, duly weighed, will convince serious 
hearers that we have not been putting them off with 
a satire instead of a sermon. 

First. We here see an argument from fact, for 
the scriptural doctrine of a great primitive apostasy, 
which has shattered both our intellectual and moral 
nature. This is the moral of the whole story : We 
inherit a fallen nature. How, in any other way, ac- 
count for that bondage to the most miserable vanity 
which enthralls the noblest of human minds ? The 
infidel may prattle until he almost believes it, con- 
cerning the perfectibility of the race ; the astrono- 
mer may descend from his observatory, and expa- 
tiate on the sublime greatness of the human intel- 
lect, because, with the help of good glasses, he has 
seen a star that was never seen before ; the chemist, 
from his laboratory, may talk in the same strain, be- 
cause, by a fortunate analysis, he has discovered a 
new elementary substance, or the composition of one 
previously considered simple. After all, fact, un- 
deniable fact, proves that men are but children of 
a larger growth ; and, that, whatever they once were, 
or by supernatural interposition may again be, there 
is little in their present status to titillate self-compla- 
cency. For our own part, when we read one of those 
amazing books which men of genius have produced, 
where not a word or thought is misplaced, and every 
sentence a gem of intellect or fancy, — no falling off, 
no occasional incongruities marring the general effect, 



SERMONS. 



227 



— in short, a perfect model of excellence, we exclaim : 
" What a mind ! Surely, it belongs to a higher 
sphere ! A god has come down in the likeness of 
men ! " But the reverential feeling is sadly abated, 
when we reflect what this book would be, if it were 
a faithful mirror of the great man's thoughts as they 
actually passed through him. Now it is not our pur- 
pose to exaggerate the matter. We readily grant 
that this vanity is a mild type of what is called de- 
pravity or corruption. But it evinces at least a loss 
of balance among the powers of the soul ; a prepon- 
derance of the low and trifling over the serious and 
dignified ; an infirmity of will, disabling it from ex- 
ercising a proper control over our mental operations, 
which could not exist in a being unscathed by apos- 
tasy. There must, therefore, have been a shock at 
some early period which has paralyzed our moral 
nature. Like a noble temple, lying under the ban of 
some unexpiated crime, it is given up to sordid uses, 
and has become a habitation for thieves and va- 
grants ; for all sorts of creeping things, and unclean 
birds. But, thanks to the Father of mercy, the in- 
terdict is not eternal. It shall be rebuilt a glorious 
edifice, and made .illustrious by the returning pres- 
ence of the august Being by whom it was erected, 
who, reentering his long-forsaken shrine, will say, 
" This is my rest forever ; here will I dwell." 

And this leads me to the topic of my second infer- 
ence, the proof suggested by our subject of a future 
immortality. It may seem a strange logic to build so 
dignified and animating a truth on the cheerless and 
mortifying details we have been spreading before 



228 



SERMONS. 



you. To some they may appear actually subversive of 
our hopes, the thought naturally occurring that so 
childish and trifling a creature has no claim on an 
enduring existence. But the argument is good, not- 
withstanding. Look at it fairly. Undoubtedly, man 
is the being whom we have represented. He is a 
compound of vices and puerilities which are calcu- 
lated to excite, not only astonishment, but painful 
contempt. Nor can any be excepted from the charge. 
The best man who treads the earth is, to his dying 
day, the wretched slave, not, indeed, of the grosser 
forms of criminality, but of a low, grovelling nature, 
the consciousness of which fills him with an oppres- 
sive sense of littleness, a painful suspicion that with 
all his nobler feelings and aspirations, he is a vulgar 
creature, unworthy of any special favors beyond a 
short earthly pilgrimage. Yet, on the other hand, 
he cannot, in his better moods, persuade himself, that 
the aspirations spoken of mean nothing. He cannot 
resist the belief that he possesses what the old Roman 
philosopher called quiddam divinum, — a certain di- 
vine nobility, that fits him for, as well as entitles him 
to expect, a protracted existence. How shall we har- 
monize this seeming contradiction, 1 — this blending in 
the same subject of light and darkness, the im- 
mensely great and almost infinitesimally small, — the 
angel and ape. The only fair solution is, that we 
are in a state of imperfect development. The human 
soul is advancing to a higher plane, and death is the 
golden gateway through which she must pass. It 
seems a necessity, in the government of the all-wise 
and benevolent Creator, that a period should arrive 



SERMONS. 



229 



when her good shall unfold into a purer, greater good ; 
and what is absurd and evil pass away, like the of- 
fensive crudity of a young fruit, when, by expansion 
and growth, it has attained its luscious ripeness. 
Let us accept with joy and thankfulness the exposi- 
tion of the apostle, given with all that lyric grandeur 
which characterized this first of human writers, when 
under the spell of some commanding thought : " The 
earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the 
manifestation of the sons of God : for the creature 
was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by 
reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope : 
for the creature itself shall be delivered from the 
bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of 
the sons of God." 

Let me, in conclusion, seriously exhort you to 
make conscience of your thoughts. There are those 
who would persuade us, though we doubt whether 
they have succeeded in persuading themselves, that 
the Creator of all worlds will never stoop so far as to 
notice, either for good or evil, the working of men's 
minds. As well may they say that he is too exalted 
to notice this muddy little planet at all. We are 
better instructed. We know that he stoops to objects 
of the smallest dimensions, and which might escape 
the notice of an imperfect being. He who spreads out 
the heavens, binds the sweet influences of Pleiades, 
and can loose the bands of Orion, who brings forth 
Mazzaroth in his season, and guides Arcturus with his 
sons, fixes with like precision the atom in the sun- 
beam, counts the drops of the ocean, and the grains 
of sand on its shore. And will he scorn to exercise 

20 



230 



SERMONS. 



jurisdiction over his finest workmanship ? man, 
man ! that soul of thine is worth more than all the 
worlds in the universe : it is a wonder ! We have 
called it God's workmanship, but untruly : it is 
God's breath, — an emanation from the Fountain of 
all light, purity, and blessedness ; more beautiful in 
his eyes, an object of greater interest, because he sees 
in it more of himself, than sun, moon, stars, and 
all the galaxy of heaven. It is his image, his living- 
reflection, so resembling him that the Eternal Son, in 
whom all the Father shines, freely, joyfully, with- 
out consciousness of any degradation, became its 
near kinsman, and died for it. And is its soiled 
purity such a trifle in the divine estimation ? Do not 
think it. The day is approaching when of all the 
vain counsels of the heart you will be required to 
give an account. In entertaining them, you are 
cherishing serpents in your bosom, which will requite 
you with deadly wounds ! 

In order to repel their invasions, be impressed with 
a serious apprehension of the omnipresence of the 
Lord. Ever remember that his all-seeing eye is 
upon you, and be warned by it to unceasing vigilance 
and circumspection. 

Watch against every occasion of vain thoughts ; 
all amusements, employments, company, pictures, 
books, that have a tendency to suggest them. 

Set a watch over your senses. Make a solemn cov- 
enant with your eyes and ears ; for, usually, they are 
the avenues through which the unclean thing obtains 
entrance. 

Finally, commit your ways to the Lord, and your 
thoughts shall be established. 



Halting in Religion. 



XI. 



HALTING IN RELIGION. 



1 Kings 18 : 21. iflfo long jjalt ge bttforot tfoa opinions ? 



HESE words are part of the address of the 
Prophet Elijah to his idolatrous countrymen 
immediately before the experiment which is- 
sued so fatally to the priests of Baal. The 
Israelites had for many ages been favored with the 
knowledge of the true and living Jehovah, while the 
nations around them were plunged in the most de- 
basing idolatry. God had recorded his name in the 
midst of them, and both by works and word had 
given most illustrious exhibitions of his character. 
Strange, however, as it may seem to those who deny 
the native corruption, and proneness to evil of the 
human heart, they, in a very early stage of their 
history, deserted his service and joined with the mis- 
erable Pagans, whom they had been taught to pity in 
bowing before the shrine of demons. Yet we are 
not to suppose that in these cases the true God was 
entirely discarded. Few ventured as far as this. 
The great body of the people continued to honor him 
with a partial recognition, and allotted him a certain 
proportion of religious worship. In this arrangement 
there was nothing at variance with the system of 

20* 




234 



SERMONS. 



Paganism. Being based on the idea of innumerable 
gods, equal and independent, it could have no objec- 
tion that its votary be sometimes found at the altar 
of Baal, sometimes at the temple of the God of 
Israel. But it was inconsistent with the service due 
to him who sat enthroned on the holy hill of Zion. 
Having rescued his covenant people from Egyptian 
bondage by an outstretched arm, and organized them 
under the happiest auspices into a nation, he an- 
nounced the first principle of their government in 
these memorable words : " Hear, Israel, the Lord 
thy God is one Jehovah ; " and threatened the most 
terrible penalties against those who would give the 
least part of his glory to another. The conduct of 
the Israelites, then, independent of its criminality, was 
the most foolish and inconsistent that can well be 
imagined. They endeavored to reconcile what, in 
the nature of things, could not be reconciled, the 
worship of the one only God with that of many, in- 
dulging the fantastic idea that by this means they 
might secure the favor and disarm the enmity of all. 

In the words of our text the prophet Elijah re- 
bukes this stupid infatuation. He informs his hearers 
that the God of Israel required their whole service ; 
that he would admit no compromise or accommoda- 
tion ; and that, rather than persist in the insulting 
course they had adopted, it was better for them en- 
tirely to reject him and surrender themselves without 
reserve to all the abominations of heathenism. The 
expression used is remarkably significant, — being 
taken from the feeble and ineffectual movements of 
a paralytic, or one maimed in his limbs, who drags 



SERMONS. 



235 



himself along with great pain, and to little purpose. 
" How long halt," or, in other words, limp, " ye be- 
tween two opinions." 

I propose to attack from these words this limping, 
— that neutrality and indecision in religion which 
so extensively prevail among hearers of the gospel. 
So wide, indeed, is its prevalence, that we may pro- 
nounce it the rock on which a decided majority wreck 
their immortal souls. It has pleased a benignant 
Providence to favor our day and land with happy 
exemption from atheism and speculative infidelity. 
Kings of the earth no longer set themselves, or rulers 
take counsel together against the Lord's Anointed. 
We no longer hide our heads in corners when we 
meet together in the name of Christ. We assemble 
in the face of day. Christian churches shoot their 
tall spires in the skies. The Sanhedrim has lost its 
authority ; the persecuting Caesars are clods of the 
valley. Christianity, in a word, has become the object 
of respect, and the assent to its doctrines is the thing 
of course expected from all who have our esteem 
and confidence. Yet that all are not Christians 
is a truth too manifest to admit of denial. How 
comes this, we are naturally disposed to ask ? How 
shall we account for the singular fact that persons 
respect, venerate, eulogize the religion of the Bible, 
without giving any evidence of really and practically 
adopting it ? Alas, it is one of those many incon- 
sistencies into which unhappy man seems doomed to 
fall, and which admits no other explanation than the 
broad scriptural proposition, " The carnal mind is 
enmity against God." 



236 



SEEM ON S. 



The fact need not be concealed, and cannot, that 
the most of men are content with walking half-way 
between G-od and the devil, — afraid of leaning too 
far toward either. On the one hand, they see an 
intrinsic excellence and reasonableness in religion ; 
their understandings tell them that it is right, that its 
laws, its rewards, its punishments, are all admirably 
proper ; its noble and lovely form pleasingly affects 
their imagination. But, on the other, they find at- 
tractions in the pleasures of sin and the world, which 
counterbalance every good impression. Hence their 
disposition to compromise the matter. They will not 
cast off the service of God, but they do not come 
up to the great rule of " loving him with all the 
heart." There is not one spark of life or energy 
in their religion. It produces no high joys, no deep 
sorrows, no definite course of conduct. They will 
not be the professed slaves and drudges of sin, work- 
ing all iniquity with greediness ; but they have no ob- 
jection to gratify occasionally an unlawful lust. They 
will keep clear of flagrant enormities from compli- 
ment to God ; but sins, less presumptuous, they com- 
mit out of indulgence to themselves. They are so 
far for religion that they attend with commendable 
punctuality its public institutions and ordinances. 
But here they stop, forgetting the more private, 
and paying no regard to the devotion of the heart. 
They approve the various benevolent projects of the 
day, the cause of Sabbath schools and Bible societies, 
of domestic and foreign missions. But they seldom 
give, and when they do, the amount shows that their 
souls are pent up in their money-bags. They profess 



SERMONS. 



237 



to know, and are sometimes heard to exclaim, in a 
sentimental way, that here " they have no continu- 
ing city ; " " that strait is the gate," etc. ; but they 
walk in the smooth-beaten track which the multitude 
tread, are always in the fashion, consult their own 
ease and pleasure, fear reproach, are impatient of re- 
proof, self-willed, delighting in the praise of men 
rather than the praise of God. 

" They see the right, and they approve it too; 
Perceive the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue." 

There are seasons, however, in their life, when the 
contest between light and darkness in their soul 
seems to promise a more happy issue, and when the 
religious attraction gains a temporary ascendency. 
They hear an impressive sermon ; and truth, like 
a barbed arrow, pierces their heart, awakening trains 
of deep and painful reflection. Or they are roused 
from their lethargy by the death of a friend, — a 
beloved parent, for instance. While they stand be- 
fore the cold remains of her, who was dearer to them 
than any other earthly object, they feel how poor 
is that riches which can boast no inheritance in the 
skies. A solemn purpose is formed of commencing 
in good earnest the Christian pilgrimage. They con- 
verse with pious friends ; are assiduous in their at- 
tendance at the prayer-meeting ; under the influence 
of their chastened and purified feelings, unfold many 
lovely qualities of heart which surprise their most 
intimate acquaintance ; and the church is already 
rejoicing in the prospect of clasping to her parental 
bosom new trophies of redeeming grace. But, be- 



8 



SEE M ONS. 



fore a very few weeks have passed away, the tear 
is dried, the prayer forgotten, and they have fallen 
back into a deeper torpor than that from which they 
were awakened. A little worldly society, a little 
temptation, a little profane raillery from their com- 
panions, made them dismiss all their resolutions and 
perjure themselves before God. Perhaps their de- 
votional paroxysm was occasioned by a fit of sick- 
ness. As their fever rose and fell, so did the 
fervors of their religion. Their piety was regulated 
by the pulse. When the physician reported one 
hundred and twenty strokes in a minute, God was 
a most glorious Being, eternity an awful thought, 
and preparation for it the only proper business of life. 
When down to seventy, a considerable spice of en- 
thusiasm was found in their former sentiments, and 
they could look at certain subjects with a much more 
calm philosophy. Truly, a sublime philosophy, which 
depends on a good digestion, and which an attack 
of headache or colic can at any time throw into 
delirium tremens ! 

In such a wretched halting between two opinions, 
do thousands pass their lives ; and they endeavor 
to excuse this ignoble state of mind by two consider- 
ations. 

The first is, that as all salvation is of grace, and 
as the Author of it is the most merciful of beings, 
a little religion will go a great way with a judge 
so inclined to be favorable. Hence, they feel at 
liberty to let the garment of Christianity sit loose on 
them, content with paying so much obedience as will 
allow him to exercise the needed indulgence, without 



SUMMONS. 



239 



grossly outraging his justice and moral rectitude. 
They ask, with some little triumph, whether the 
design of Christ's advent into the world was not 
to atone for sin and defects ; to compensate for what 
we have not done, by what he himself hath done ; to 
cover our infirmities and nakedness with the robe of 
his merit? I entertain not a doubt, that this is a 
favorite speculation of all whom I am now describ- 
ing. They do make the Redeemer and his work 
a minister to licentiousness ; they do continue in sin, 
that grace may abound, — and from the very blessed 
fact, which should kindle a burning ardor in the 
service of their God and Saviour, they take occasion 
to stand aloof, or, at least, to halt between two 
opinions. 

Another flattering unction they lay to their soul is 
the notion, that even if an earnest and decided re- 
ligion he necessary, yet there will be full opportunity 
for it at a future period. Conscience will not always 
permit them to rest in the former consideration. It 
tells them, in a voice of thunder, that nothing short of 
supreme affection to the God of life and redemption, 
a confirmed hatred to all the ways of sin, will secure 
an interest in the Redeemer's merit ; and now the 
policy of indefinite or definite postponement is re- 
sorted to. If asked on what grounds they defer an 
event so essential to their eternal welfare, they are 
at no loss for answers. Some pressing worldly em- 
barrassment is to be removed, some business to be 
adjusted, a certain age to be reached. Nay, I per- 
sonally know an individual who, being questioned 
why he did not unite himself with the church of 



240 



SERMONS. 



Christ, answered that he was ready for the important 
step three years previous, but that he had been 
waiting (kind husband as he was) for the company 
of his wife ! At other times, the plea of deliberation 
is used. They exhibit themselves in the dignified 
attitude of reflecting, calculating, seeking light, — an 
excuse sometimes, indeed, perfectly valid, but much 
more frequently a mere pretext for indulging the 
most criminal supineness and indifference. Some 
are engaged, they tell us, in preparing for disciple- 
ship by a course of gradual reformation. They have 
not, as yet, obtained deliverance from a particular 
passion, or vice of temper, which gives them much 
uneasiness and would not be reputable in a Christian 
professor. They are not sure that they could re- 
sist the temptation to drink a little too deeply, if 
thrown into certain company and situations ; or 
they are subject to violent gusts of anger, during 
which they act more like madmen, than reasonable 
creatures. They are sorry to add, that the habit of 
profaneness is not entirely eradicated. These things 
they hope to correct in due time, and then shall they 
join hands with the people of the Redeemer. Plausi- 
ble language, and quite agreeable to flesh and blood. 
To break off ungodliness by a violent wrench, and 
at once, costs too much ; they cannot think of it. 
They know that they have no right to continue in 
the violation of any one of Heaven's edicts a single 
hour, and that the very thought of so doing is a 
mockery of the Divine Being. But they are de- 
termined to make the trial ; they resolve on getting 
better by degrees, to hate the ways of holiness a little 



SERMONS. 



241 



less, and to love the paths of sin a little less, from 
month to month, or, at least, from year to year ; and 
they doubt not, that, before leaving the world, if they 
live long enough, they will prove excellent Christians. 
Nothing can be more convenient than such a scheme. 
It soothes the mind in its guilty terrors. It presents 
the prospect of repenting and reforming. It takes up 
the purpose, and the poor deceived man is habitually 
violating the most solemn commands of his God, 
hardening his conscience, and strengthening every sin- 
ful principle of his heart, while gayly flattering him- 
self that the experiment of gradual improvement is 
in the full tide of successful operation. 

Having delineated the character of those described 
in the text, I proceed to expostulate with them, and 
convince them, if possible, of their guilt and folly. I 
say, if possible, — for if the heart be unaffected, vain 
are appeals to the understanding ; and this is the 
true reason why the gospel minister so often labors 
in vain, and spends his strength for nought. Were 
you as willing as you are able to discuss the question 
of duty, the preacher would be saved many long 
speeches, and yourselves many tedious hours in lis- 
tening to him. 

I observe, in the first place, that the course of con- 
duct described is the most unreasonable that can 
be imagined. The great distinction between a wise 
man and a fool is, that the former, after a careful 
deliberation, forms his maxims, to which under the 
conviction of their truth he resolutely adheres. His 
decisions are fixed, and become the standard and 

rule of his conduct. The fool, on the other hand, 
21 



242 



SERMONS. 



rests content on every subject with vague impres- 
sions, and has no maxims, unless we honor with that 
name the thousand prejudices he has received from 
education or accident. He is. therefore, the sport of 
every contingency. He is guilty of innumerable in- 
consistencies every hour, and to him may be applied 
the old adage concerning death, — " Nothing is cer- 
tain but its uncertainty." That he should adopt a 
system of opinions by halves is not surprising. He is 
a fool; and the character of a fool is that he holds 
conclusions while denying the premises, and holds 
the premises while denying the conclusion. From a 
wise man, better things are expected. We require 
him to be consistent. We require that whatever senti- 
ments he adopts, he will defend in all their bearings, 
and that he will practically abide by their results. 
However great, or however little may be their solid- 
ity, we expect that he, at least, will feel confidence in 
them, and be willing to stake his happiness and 
hopes upon their truth. Such is the reasonable man 
in common life, and such, let me say, is the reasona- 
ble man in religion. He is one who, scorning the 
trammels and swaddling-bands of education, aspires 
to study for himself the great question of obligation, 
and discover what relations exist between him and 
his Creator. After due examination he adopts con- 
clusions. Altogether unlike the wretched sophists, 
who, glorying in their shame, count it the highest 
honor of human nature to be enveloped in universal 
scepticism, he considers truth, — knowledge, as the 
object of all his researches, and the attainment of 
which can only justify his toil. He therefore, as I 



SERMONS. 



243 



have said, adopts conclusions ; and, not stopping 
here, unites them into a code of practical principles 
which give a complete tone to his whole future life 
and conduct. For example, if, after an honest scru- 
tiny into the evidences of a Supreme Being, he brings 
himself to believe (pardon me the supposition that a 
reasonable man can bring himself to believe), that 
there is no God, he at once rejects him, and puts 
down without ceremony the rising sentimentalities 
of early education. If, on the contrary, he is con- 
vinced of the existence of a great First Cause, he 
acknowledges it, and acts upon it. If, after an ex- 
amination of the authenticity and truth of the gos- 
pel, he discovers it to be the invention of men, no 
Bible-hankerings will prevent him from thinking so ; 
and, suiting his conduct to the thought, he will at 
once cast it forth from his heart, his family, his 
closet, and take reason as the only guide of his pil- 
grimage through life. Does he find it, on the con- 
trary, to justify its high pretensions, he believes it. 
Yes, he believes it in the richest meaning of the 
word. He acquiesces in all its doctrines, precepts, 
penalties, and rewards. He takes it as a light to 
his feet, and a lamp to his path. He exclaims, 
"Oh, how I love thy law ; it is my meditation all the 
day;" "mine eyes prevent the night-watches that 
I may meditate on thy word." 

If there be any justice in these remarks, I would 
ask hoiv, without a gross abuse of language, we can 
honor the persons described in the text, with the 
name of reasonable creatures ? The reasonable man 
is one who forms on every important subject decided 



244 



SERMONS, 



opinions. These have no opinions, — on themes, too, 
of absorbing interest. The reasonable man carries 
out his belief into appropriate, consistent practice. 
These are halting between two plans of conduct, not 
only at variance with each other, but as opposite as 
light and darkness : like a stupid mariner, who, un- 
willing for some reason to leave his anchorage ground, 
holds on to his moorings, while at the same time, 
desirous of gaining his destined port, he spreads all 
his canvas to the breeze. Let me address myself for 
a moment to them in friendly expostulation. You 
believe that there is a God. Why do you not serve 
him ? You believe in the Scriptures of the Old and 
New Testament. Why, then, do you not make them 
the supreme rule of your conduct ? You are there 
informed of your miserable condition by nature ; and 
yet the cry has never been heard to escape your lips, 
" What shall I do to be saved ? " You are there made 
acquainted with Christ and the terms on which his 
redemption is applied ; and yet you have never be- 
lieved on his name, nor repented towards God. The 
same with all the moral truths of religion. You 
believe them all without exception, and yet contin- 
ually belie them by your life and conduct. Certainly 
the warmest partiality must concede that you are 
acting most unreasonably; and were it the same in 
the things of this world, you would be hooted at 
as fools and idiots. But there, alas, you are as wise 
as the wisest ! Were a man to offer you what had 
every appearance of a splendid bargain, you might 
pause for a moment ; but you would not pause long ; 
the decision would soon be made ; or if the offerer, 



SERM ONS. 



245 



wearied with your delays, transferred his overture to 
another, how would you curse your unreasonableness 
in neglecting so excellent an opportunity of improv- 
ing your condition ! And yet, when God is proffering 
all the riches of heaven and glory, you stand aloof, 
fluctuating, undecided, though you know not what 
a day or an hour may bring forth. 

Secondly. This course of conduct is unprofitable. If 
any good effects with respect to a person's happiness 
resulted from neutrality in religion, though they 
would not take away guilt, they might be brought 
forward as a plea of extenuation. But there are 
none. Its only tendency is to limit and curtail hu- 
man enjoyment. Religion, like the fiery pillar which 
conducted Israel to the promised land, has its bright 
and its dark side, — I mean its pleasures and its pains. 
The service of sin has its lights, and shadows also. 
That there is pleasure in sin cannot be denied, how- 
ever we may question its solidity and duration. There 
is pleasure in forgetting the Being to whom we must 
give an account, and in living far from his presence. 
There is pleasure in the cup of intemperance, how- 
ever it may turn to bitterness in the end. There is 
pleasure, to men of a certain complexion, in low and 
licentious company, in degrading sensual gratifica- 
tion. There is pleasure in gambling, in violating 
the Sabbath, in venting malevolent passions, in laugh- 
ing at all that good men call venerable and holy. I 
say not that the enjoyment is of a very elevated na- 
ture, or that no bitter recompense is in store. Hell 
and the burning wrath of God are a tremendous 
drawback on such pleasure. Pleasure, however, it is ; 
21* 



246 



SERMONS. 



and they who wallow in open vice are therefore not 
without their remuneration. Now the striking pe- 
culiarity in the case of those under our review is, 
that they contrive to lose the satisfactions both of 
religion and sin at the same time. They know little of 
the Christian's joys, but experience many of his sor- 
rows and privations. They scarcely taste the pleasures 
of ungodliness, for they dare not ; and yet feel its 
envenomed sting. Universal observation proves this, 
and leaves no room to doubt that a partial religion 
makes a man miserable rather than happy. By 
it he is kept back from many indulgences, which, 
though unlawful, are real sources of enjoyment ; yet 
never attains that true peace, those prelibations of 
celestial felicity which God gives as a compensation 
to those who love him. By it he is goaded to the 
performance of an insipid round of outward ob- 
servances, unacceptable to God, and wearying to him- 
self. In a word, he forfeits the Devil's pay, though 
he in reality serves him as diligently as ever. He 
has religion enough to feel ivoe-begone and anxious in 
every serious conjuncture of life, but not enough to 
inspire him with Christian vigor and fortitude. He 
has enough to make his strong frame shiver with 
agony in the prospect of death, but not enough to 
put into his lips the believer's triumphal song, " 
death I where is thy sting ? grave ! where is thy 
victory?" His religion will not let him enjoy the 
world, and the world will not let him enjoy God ; so 
that he has no peace in either. The reckless and 
abandoned ruffian has, in point of happiness, a de- 
cided advantage over him. The former, confining 



SERMONS. 



247 



himself to one source of pleasure, low and degraded 
though it be, gains something. This one, grasping 
two incompatible goods, loses both. Rest assured that 
never will the comforts of the Holy Ghost be poured 
into our hearts, never will our piety become a living 
fount of joy, until we become not almost but alto- 
gether Christians. 

Thirdly. The conduct referred to is servile and 
unmanly. It is the character of a man, that is, of 
one who proves his right to the name by the posses- 
sion of a manly spirit, that when he sees an object 
before him which it is desirable to obtain, no diffi- 
culties nor sacrifices will deter him from the pur- 
suit. On the same principle, we despise the coward, 
who can betray a noble cause through fear of cer- 
tain dangers and personal inconveniences. Such is 
the spirit evinced by those whose criminality we are 
exposing. They believe that the unreserved prac- 
tice of religion is right and proper ; they will even 
concede, in their hours of calmer reflection, that it 
is the one thing needful ; but they shrink from the 
privations it may cost. They shudder at the thought 
of sacrificing certain indulgences and amusements, of 
being obliged to walk circumspectly, of losing caste 
among their gay companions. What adds to the un- 
manliness is their still persisting in attentions to the 
object of their apprehension. They are evidently 
* afraid of being too intimate, and as evidently afraid 
of being too far distant. Did their fears induce them 
to neglect it altogether, this would be comparatively 
playing the hero ; but to coquet with it, to treat 
it in this flirting, ambiguous manner, deserves no 



248 



SERMONS. 



other name than superlative treachery and cow- 
ardice. How do we despise a man of whom we hear, 
that he makes it his business to attend the levees 
of two hostile political leaders, fawning equally on 
both, and anxiously concealing from the one his 
attentions to the other. Such is the respect many 
pay to religion, — the respect of a slave, — outward, 
cringing, hypocritical, and self-contradictory. There 
sits the slave, — the poor, crouching, shuffling, 
double-dealer with his God. His whole life is spent 
in going two ways, one step forward, and one step 
backward. He is continually building up with the 
one hand, and, as if frightened at his own work, 
pulling down with the other. He loves sin, and hates 
it ; he loves God, and flees from him ; he would, 
and he would not. Must not a mean and slavish 
spirit be at the bottom of a character like this ? 

Fourthly. It is entirely inexcusable. If the ques- 
tion whether it was our duty to enter on a life of 
piety was difficult to answer, some hesitation might 
be allowed. But none is more easy. The light of 
nature itself decides it ; beside which, we are fur- 
nished with an ample and lucid revelation. Ee- 
ligion, consisting in the love and fear of God, evinc- 
ing itself by universal obedience, we are distinctly 
told is " the one thing needful." The issue of a con- 
trary course is painted in the most awful colors, and 
the reward of holiness in language the most stirring 
and delightful ; there is, therefore, no hard problem to 
solve. " The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth ; 
— the word of faith which we preach." To continue, 
then, in suspense for a moment is without excuse. 



SERMONS. 



249 



Were there many paths to life, an interval of delay 
might be demanded to ascertain which should be 
preferred. But as there is only one ; as we know 
there is but one, why waste precious time in idling 
round the gate, when everything around us and 
within us urges to decisive action ? 

The inexcusableness of such conduct appears not 
only from the clearness with which the conditions of 
salvation are exhibited, but from their ease and light- 
ness. What doth the Lord thy God require of thee ? 
Must you forsake your pleasant home, and travel to 
the ends of the earth in search of something rare 
and difficult to be obtained ? Must you offer up 
thousands of rams, and ten thousands of rivers of 
oil ? Must you sacrifice the dearest comforts of life, 
your first-born for your transgression, and the fruit 
of your body for the sin of your soul ? Must you re- 
tire to a desert, live on roots and water, and dig 
your own grave in the sand ? None of these things. 
You are not required to sacrifice one human af- 
fection or sympathy. The unnatural and austere 
morality, which imposes such self-crucifixion, has no 
warrant from Scripture, which exhorts us to " eat our 
bread with joy." The goodness of God has filled the 
world with a variety of pleasing objects, all of which 
have a claim on our attachment. They administer 
the means of satisfaction and comfort to soften our 
passage through this state of trial. Many of them, 
by their order and brilliancy, attract the warmest ad- 
miration, and excite in the cultivated mind emotions 
of beauty or sublimity which an angel might ac- 
knowledge without a blush. All demanded of us 



250 



SEE M ON S. 



is, that every affection, directed to transitory objects, 
be subordinate to the love of Him who is the source 
of all excellence and felicity. God requires us to 
give him the first place in our regard, that is all ; to 
show ourselves, in all conjunctures, on his side ; to 
spend our property, after satisfying our necessary 
wants, in promoting his kingdom, to keep his Holy 
Sabbath, to maintain secret, private, and family de- 
votion, and to live as those who have their conversa- 
tion in heaven. Let any man in this assembly give 
a good, substantial reason why he hesitates an in- 
stant in commencing a life like this, — a life so ex- 
cellent, so happy, so divine, that in comparison with 
it no other deserves the name. Could heaven be 
more cheaply won ? 

Lastly. It is self-deceiving and self -destructive. A 
little religion, like a little learning, is a dangerous 
thing. It elates with pride, lulls the conscience of 
its possessor into a fatal slumber, and encourages 
him to say " Peace, peace, when there is no peace." 
Hence the old, and, in some respects, true observa- 
tion, though liable to be misunderstood, that the 
gross and scandalous evil-doer is nearer the kingdom 
of heaven, than the decent, self-righteous Pharisee 
who maintains the form of godliness without the 
power. The former has no pretensions to piety, and 
is prepared, therefore, to see his wretchedness. The 
latter, though equally destitute of true love to God, 
still professes attachment, and, resting on this, he 
hardens himself against every attempt to convince 
him that he is poor and wretched, miserable, blind, 
and naked. 



SERMONS. 



251 



It is true, the number is very small of such per- 
sons. There are few of our limping religionists who 
can rid themselves of terrible misgivings that all is 
not right ; for, as I have already observed, a partial 
religion is, in general, a source of more uneasiness 
than enjoyment. Yet its votaries contrive to blunt 
the keen edge of their fears by some course of 
thought like the following : — Heaven, they imagine to 
be, an extensive and magnificent mansion, prepared 
for a multitude whom no man can number, and 
offered to mankind on certain conditions. Now, 
when they look through the world, they discover so 
few conforming to the terms, in their spirituality 
and rigor, that an abatement seems absolutely neces- 
sary in order to secure a quorum. God must adopt 
the policy of the proprietors of our public vehicles 
in a time of competition, who, to avoid the disgrace 
of running empty, are fain to put up with half-price ; 
and, if so, who have a better right than they to claim 
the benefit of the arrangement ? They cannot ex- 
pect indeed a high place in the kingdom of heaven. 
But, good, humble creatures, they do not ask it ; 
they are not ambitious. Little desirous of any in- 
timate acquaintance with God in the present life, 
they are not greatly troubled with the thought of 
standing apart from him in the next. A snug cor- 
ner of paradise, be it ever so distant and out of 
sight, will satisfy their highest wishes. Thus they 
live, thus they die, and discover not their error but 
by the light of the inextinguishable flame. 

We conclude with a few reflections. 

First. How fatally ignorant are many of their 



252 



SERMONS. 



true character in the sight of God. We would not 
indulge in uncharitable judgment, remembering that 
with what measure we mete, it shall be measured to 
us again ; but the fact is too notorious, that much of 
the Christianity we see around us falls exceedingly 
short of what its great Author requires. How, other- 
wise, can we explain that attachment to the world, 
that thirst for riches, that levity of deportment, that 
fondness for giddy pastimes and amusements, which 
imiversally prevail ? Are these symptoms of a dis- 
position to make religion and the service of God our 
chief joy ? Rather do they not strikingly prove that 
even on the most favorable supposition our hearts are 
divided between him and idols ? 

Secondly. We see the fact explained, that many 
who begin well the Christian course come short of 
the Christian reward. They stop in the midst of 
their career. Having, under the common operations 
of the Spirit of God, become convinced of their sin 
and misery, they were made to cry with the im- 
portunity of despair, " What shall I do to be saved? " 
Discovering the plan of redemption by Jesus Christ, 
they admired its glorious suitableness to their condi- 
tion, and exclaimed, with an honest fervor, " My Lord, 
and my God." So far, all was well. But here they 
rested. They forgot that the most essential part of 
true religion is self-dedication to Gocl; that he only 
is accepted who yields unlimited obedience to his 
laws ; and that he who makes one reserve stops short 
of the gate of immortality. Thus, terminating their 
journey heavenward, they have at last found them- 
selves excluded, and their lofty hopes have vanished 



SERMONS. 



253 



into vapor before the tremendous sentence : " Depart 
from me, ye workers of iniquity." 

I conclude, with affectionately exhorting you to 
make thorough work of your religion. It is an 
eternal truth, that, if Christianity be worth anything, 
it is worth everything ; if it deserves thinking about 
at all, it deserves thinking about almost to the ex- 
clusion of every other subject. You cannot, in this 
important matter, be too diligent, too decided. 
Many have had reason to lament their indolence, but 
none, who are now enjoying the heavenly crown, 
complain that they ran with too much eagerness the 
race set before them. And let us remember that 
time is short. Let us make the most of it, by press- 
ing into it as much virtue and religion as we can. 
The flower of the field must scatter its odors to-day ; 
to-morrow it is gone. Live not one hour in vain. 
Whatever opportunity of serving God you have, 
seize it with avidity ; whatever useful undertaking 
you may have meditated, make haste to execute ; for 
soon must you lie down in the dust, and the eye shall 
seek you in the morning, but you shall not be. 
Thus shall you secure a peace which will sustain you 
in all life's trying vicissitudes, and when you fall 
asleep (the servant of Christ never dies), angelic 
whispers shall be heard around your bed, lulling 
your wearied, but happy spirit in strains like this : — 

" Servant of God, well done ; 
Thy glorious warfare's past, 
The battle's fought, the race is won, 
And thou art crowned at last." 
22 



The Two Truths. 



XII. 



THE TWO TRUTHS. 



John 3:36. %i tljat bxlubttlj oit % jion \eA\ .ebn-Iasiing life : unts 
\t %i bdicbctlj not % %a\x, sJjaU not m life; bat % fnratlj of (Sob 
abibttlj on jjim. 



T is not difficult to assign the reason why our 
religion — so unaccommodating and in al- 
most every sense unpopular, as well on ac- 
count of the purity of its precepts as the aw- 
fulness of its sanctions — always has had and will 
have such devoted friends and advocates. The ex- 
planation is to be found in the deep, abiding convic- 
tion, planted by the Spirit of God in the soul which 
he is pleased to make the object of his teaching, 
that it is the only scheme which promises, on any 
solid grounds, deliverance from the evils that human 
nature principally dreads, and possession of the bless- 
ings it most of all desires. It satisfies, and it alone 
satisfies, the thoughtful spirit's longings for immor- 
tality. After making fair trial of other expedients, 
— all disappointing it, all ending in weariness and 
disgust, — it at last was directed, like Hagar, to this 
fountain in the desert, and has found refreshment. 
"He that believeth on the Son," says our text, 
" hath everlasting life ; and he that believeth not 
the Son shall not see life." 

Without entering into a minute exposition of the 
22* 



258 



SERMONS* 



words, which is entirely unnecessary, we propose to 
make them the basis of a few important reflections, 
which, if they do not excite interest and serious atten- 
tion, the cause must lie in their unhappy presentation 
on the part of the speaker, or sad stupidity in you the 
hearers. 

Our first observation is, that all men need some 
refuge from apprehensions of the future ; some re- 
source which may enable them to look forward with 
any kind of satisfaction to the unresolved problem, — 
what awaits them beyond the present. This need is 
the result of our constitutional ignorance and sinful- 
ness ; our ignorance preventing us from seeing into a, 
future state, and our sinfulness damping what dis- 
coveries we may make, by a sense of guilt and a fore- 
boding of future punishment. With regard to the 
former, it is universally acknowledged. It is very 
certain that we know little of hereafter, and the little 
we do know is by no means decidedly favorable to 
our wishes. The man who, unenlightened by Chris- 
tianity, first dared to whisper the suggestion, that the 
grave is not the end of our career, that its prison- 
doors shall be opened, the prisoner burst his chains 
and soar to happier regions, — that man, I freely ac- 
knowledge, offered a sublime conjecture ; and he 
was led to it, I concede, by many specious analogies 
and presumptions. He thought probably of the vi- 
cissitudes of the seasons, the change wrought in the 
chrysalis of insects, the spiritual nature of the soul, 
its indefinite capacity, its longings after immortality, 
the justice of the Almighty, and the voice of con- 
science, — all tending to invest witlra shadowy proba- 



SERMONS. 



259 



bility the idea of future existence. But conjecture, 
in its highest degree of plausibility, is immensely 
removed from that certainty which on such a sub- 
ject is necessary to give repose to the mind ; and, ac- 
cordingly, at this very day, the mere philosopher 
doubts of the immortality of the soul ! 

Thus man needs a resource against his ignorance, 
but much more against his conscious guilt. It is a 
sad reflection, that, if any light at all on the subject 
of hereafter beams on the child of nature, the 
greater part of it comes, not from the fountain of 
light, but darkness, — I mean from sin. Christ is 
the only credible teacher of immortality left to our 
desolate world ; and our single comfort is that, when 
it denounces " tribulations," it, too, deals only in 
probabilities, though, it must be confessed, they are 
of the highest kind. Who that reflects on these 
things will hesitate to acknowledge that human na- 
ture has need of a resource, which may nerve it to 
look forward without shrinking at the possibilities of 
the future ? Were the prospect only a dark one, a 
resource would be needed. But, merciful God ! how 
worse it is than dark ! 

Secondly. Accordingly, we observe that the gener- 
ality of men, in a greater or less degree, feel this 
need, and resort to some expedient or another against 
the fear of what follows after death. There is reason 
to think that no man, at least no man of ordinary 
cultivation, is perfectly asleep on this point. The 
fault of the majority is, not that they despise the 
blessedness of another world, for this is impossible ; 
but they seek where they cannot find it, or impose 



260 



SERMONS. 



upon themselves by various modes of thinking, which 
as effectually deprive them of this blessedness as if 
they did not seek at all. Who would not be saved ? 
Who would not give all the world contains for a 
tranquillizing assurance that when the soul parts 
from its clay tenement the bitterness of death is for- 
ever passed, and will be succeeded by a joyful morn- 
ing ? Go through the world with this interrogatory. 
Ask the drunkard, reeling from his midnight orgies ; 
ask the seducer of innocence, the midnight assassin, 
the ravager of kingdoms. The deadly pallor with 
which the very suggestion overspreads their coun- 
tenances sufficiently evinces that, whatever be the 
certain tendencies of their conduct, damnation is not 
in any of their calculations. Hence, as no nation 
is to be found without its religious creed, so there is 
scarcely an individual who has not provided a system 
of opinions in which he may find shelter from the 
fears of an unknown, dark futurity. These systems 
vary with the temperament, and undergo innumera- 
ble modifications from circumstances, such as age, 
company, course of reading, and education. The 
man of literary accomplishments has his ; the vulgar 
have theirs ; but all proceed from the same source, 
and have the same end in view. 

Thirdly. We now proceed to observe that, apart 
from the revelation of the blessed gospel, they are 
all inefficient and utterly vain. When we say this, 
we hazard no doubtful proposition. It is not denied 
that some have been attended with partial success ; 
that the bloody rites of Paganism, for instance, have 
frequently armed their votaries against the terrors of 



SERMON 8. 



261 



dissolution ; and the deluded follower of the Ara- 
bian impostor has found in the unholy dogmas of his 
sensual creed a courage which enabled him to bear 
up not only against life's sorest evils, but the bitter 
pangs of death, in the hope of immortality. What 
we contend for is the entire inadequacy of all the 
devices sought out and embraced by human inge- 
nuity to tranquillize a reflecting mind. Go where 
we will, if we go not to Christ, we have neither peace 
to the conscience, nor rest to the heart. 

Take a few examples. Shall we go to atheism f — 
The speaker's heart would die within him, could he 
imagine that there was one within reach of his voice 
disposed to hesitate as to the answer. 'Atheism is 
the madness of human nature. He who can take 
complacency in the idea of standing naked in a 
fatherless world ; in the idea that virtue and crime, 
judgment and retribution, death and the life beyond it, 
are high-sounding words of emptiness, — only proves 
that there are no assignable limits to the mind's 
power of self-abasement. And what does he gain ? 
What tempts him to cut away with ruthless hand 
everything in human belief that is dignifying and 
dear to a pure heart ? He thinks, doubtless, that 
his scheme puts an eternal extinguisher on those 
fears of hereafter which so often interrupt his pleas- 
ures, and awaken him at the midnight hour. " No 
God ! — then no life to come : — then let me eat and 
drink, for to-morrow I die." But does he reason 
well, even on his own horrible principles ? Examine 
this point for a moment. It is certain that we exist 
at present, whatever becomes of us in the future ; 



262 



SERMONS. 



that we feel ; that we often terribly suffer. How 
happens this ? The atheist, of course, replies, by 
chance : all things are in a continual flow, and among 
the endless vicissitudes and revolutions that have 
been taking place, we have sprung up in our turn ; — 
it being as likely that such a modification of matter as 
man should happen to exist as any other modification. 
But now comes a question which probably did not oc- 
cur to him while constructing his ingenious argument : 
whether, on the same notable principle of chance, my 
existence may not be protracted beyond the change that 
takes place at death ? What is to insure me against 
undergoing a revolution like that experienced by 
many animals, who die in winter and revive in spring ? 
I live at present ; may I not live hereafter f I suffer 
now ; may I not suffer hereafter ? and what, in the 
doctrine of chance, assures me that this suffering 
shall not be a thousand fold greater than in exist- 
ing circumstances ? Such is the system of the un- 
happy atheist. While it tears away every consola- 
tion in the hour of trial, everything soothing to a 
good man's soul, every motive to virtue, it, at the 
same moment, whispers in the ear of its votary that 
his worst apprehensions may be realized to the full. 
Oh, thou haggard monster, whom even hell dis- 
owns, — wherever we seek relief, we seek it not in 
thee ! 

Shall we go to deism, — that more common form 
of infidelity, which, rejecting the Christian revela- 
tion, but borrowing from the treasures it affects to de- 
spise, acknowledges the existence of an almighty 
First Cause ; his inspection over the conduct of his 



SERMONS. 



263 



creatures, and a future state of punishment and 
reward ? Though there is something, in this sys- 
tem, out of sight, more noble than can be found in 
the dismal slough of atheism, truth compels us to 
say that there is nothing more unsatisfying. What, 
in the first place, is to assure the deist that the Bible 
is not, as it professes to be, the unerring word of 
6fod, and that its solemn denunciations are not the 
genuine expressions of the divine anger against sin ? 
He may dispute the sufficiency of its evidence, and 
infer, from what he thinks a comprehensive view of 
the whole subject, that probably it is not of celestial 
origin. But he dare go no further. Here he must stick. 
After all, Jesus Christ may be no impostor, his doc- 
trine no delusion, Tophet no fable ; and what is the 
position of the deist then, habitual despiser as he is of 
the blood of God's everlasting covenant ? But pass- 
ing this, and allowing him to have satisfied himself 
that the gospel is a falsehood, the query now arises, 
where else shall he go ? What doctrine will give him 
that repose which the words of Christ fail to impart ? 
Let him go to one portion of the globe, and he will 
see unnumbered multitudes worshipping before the 
shrine of uncleanness, or precipitating themselves 
beneath the wheels of an idol's car. In another 
direction, a father is taking his little one from the 
bosom of its mother, and enclosing it in the burning 
arms of Moloch. In another, he sees a whole nation 
offering up its prayers to a butterfly. Or, sick of hu- 
man folly, will he look out on beautiful nature, and, 
from the contemplation of her, evolve a system of 
beliefs which shall not be altogether unworthy of a 



264 



SERMONS. 



rational being ? But, when he fairly girds himself 
to this task, he soon finds that he has entered on a 
dark and dreary path.^ The first object of his anxiety 
will be, of course, to ascertain the intentions and 
temper of the Deity. When, for this purpose, he 
surveys his actual ways and works, he is astounded 
at finding that the unequivocal proofs of his perfect 
goodness are enclosed within a very narrow compass. 
He sees much good in the world, — does he not ? 
Ay ! But does he not see much evil ? Does he not 
find a character of misfortune clearly impressed on 
his own nature, in all stages of his progress from the 
cradle to the grave, affording sad omen of what may, 
perhaps, take place hereafter. Besides, when he at- 
tends to the operations of his own mind, he discovers 
there a profound conviction that he is under the 
just displeasure of the Lord of all worlds ; and when 
he looks abroad, he sees, in the trembling anxiety of 
all nations to propitiate their deities by blood, a 
proof that this consciousness is universal, and, there- 
fore, has some foundation in truth ; for there is no 
such a thing as an universal error. 

There is a circumstance, deserving notice, which 
must give a terrible increase to his forebodings that it 
may not be well with him. Had his Maker any 
favorable intentions, is it not likely that some pre- 
intimation would be given of them, — would be given 
in the way of taking him out of the world ? We can 
hardly suppose that a monarch would order one of 
his subjects to be forced from his bed at midnight, 
violently, with many accompaniments of pain and 
disgrace, unless to inflict some terrible punishment. 



SERMONS. 



265 



Certainly, the subject would feel little hope that these 
were stepping-stones to a high place in his Master's 
favor. Apply this analogy to death. How are we 
taken out of the world ? Are we not torn from it, 
just as a criminal is torn from his house to be 
immured in a dungeon ? Our body is racked with 
pain ; our spirits wither ; we send forth strange sighs 
and groans ; our friends weep over us, and, when the 
struggle is over, put on funeral garments, and receive 
the condolements of surviving friends. Everything 
bears witness that death is not understood by the 
unsophisticated human heart to be the passage of a 
king's son up to his father's house. Would it not 
rather seem as if it were a prelude to something 
more dreadful than itself? Believe me, you who go 
to infidelity, go to learn in a gloomy school. She is a 
sufficiently pleasant companion, no doubt, to thought- 
less and giddy youth, caracoling along the broad 
highway of life, intent only on the gratification of the 
present hour. Many are the quirks and jeers at the 
moroseness of the bigot, which she can sport for 
his amusement, and, by her help, he can overcome 
many disagreeable compunctions which stand in the 
way of forbidden pleasure. But ivoe to him who 
arrives at the end of his course, and has no other 
guide ! Looking down the dismal steep, she turns 
pale, and faints, and dies ; or, suddenly transformed 
into a demon, triumphs in the misery of her be- 
sotted dupe, and with her own hands precipitates 
him into the yawning gulf. " my soul, come 
not into the secrets of infidelity ! " 

But we shall not any longer detain you from the 

23 



266 



SERM ONS. 



most important and delightful part of our subject. 
The text is not a negative proposition, blessed be 
God ! It does not cast down, but builds up. It does 
not kill, but makes alive ; and so makes alive, that its 
quickened ones shall live forever. " He that believ- 
eth on the Son of God hath everlasting life." To a 
few proofs and illustrations of this, your attention 
shall now be directed. 

We say, then, in the first place, that Jesus Christ 
alone has the gift of eternal life, as he is the only effec- 
tive teacher of it ; the only Master who inculcated the 
doctrine upon his disciples, and made its absolute, 
undoubted certainty the corner-stone of his whole 
system. The idea of immortality undoubtedly ex- 
isted long before his advent ; but he alone brought it 
down from the clouds of doubt, to that sober certainty, 
which fitted it to be practically influential, and to 
mingle itself with the every-day feelings and calcula- 
tions of men. Mark his habitual language. " Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word hath 
eternal life, and shall not come into condemnation, 
but is passed from death unto life." " Verily, verily, 
the hour is coining when the dead shall hear the 
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall 
live." Who dared, besides the Man of Galilee, to 
talk in a strain like this ? You see nothing dark 
or perplexing in the language: it is the Minister 
of Heaven who speaks, — one, who has himself 
come from the celestial cabinet which he repre- 
sents, and with his own eyes has seen the fair 
mansions which are preparing for the heirs of im- 
mortality. I speak not at present, at least directly, 



SEEM ON S. 



267 



of tho truth of this statement. Whether Jesus is, in 
these respects, what he professes to be, is a distinct 
consideration. We only say, that a prophet of im- 
mortality cannot be asked to give a better account of 
the way in which he received his instructions. Had 
he reasoned like the sages of the schools, he might 
have obtained his share of disciples, and his system 
taken its place among the otherwise conjectures of 
the age ; but, in this case, would have been entirely 
destitute of that certainty, which has made it super- 
sede every other, and be acknowledged by all civil- 
ized humanity, from the rising to the setting sun, 
man's best blessing and surest guide. 

Hear, also, the language of the apostle : " We 
know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." And 
who dared to talk thus ; who dared to say, " we know," 
but the disciples of this Master ? There is something 
exceedingly delightful in all this, — in teachings so 
direct, so unqualified, and fearless, on such a subject ; 
especially, when we contrast them with the timid 
doubt that is found everywhere else. For we natu- 
rally ask, how could this teacher speak with such 
assurance of manner, and inspire his scholars with 
such confidence of belief, unless he derived his 
knowledge from an authentic source ? 

And here is a most powerful additional considera- 
tion ; that he tells us he received his certain knowl- 
edge, precisely in the way we. judge he would have 
received it, — not from problematical and indetermi- 
nate reasonings, but from his eternal Father, who 



268 



SEE HONS. 



sent him for the express purpose of announcing to a 
desponding race his merciful designs. This is enough. 
We have the will of him who made us, that we 
should have eternal life, expressed in the clearest 
terms, by an ambassador who could not mistake ; for 
he was God's own eternal Son, who lay in his bosom, 
and shared in his most secret councils. " I came 
down from heaven," he says, " not to do mine own 
will, but the will of him that sent me ; and this 
is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all 
which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but 
should raise it up again at the last day." 

We observe, secondly, that Jesus Christ has the 
gift of eternal life, inasmuch as he has revealed the 
only scheme of it consistent with the principles of 
divine government, and calculated to meet the diffi- 
culties which, to a reflecting mind, present themselves 
on this subject. Let us suppose that some wise man 
among the heathen had stepped forth before the pub- 
lic, and taught the doctrine with all the energy and 
directness of Christ himself. Suppose, still more, 
that he had assumed the prerogative of an ambas- 
sador from heaven, and that his hearers were quite 
willing to acknowledge him in this august character ; 
we contend that not one of the numerous crowd, 
however fascinated by the charms of his eloquence, 
would retire, their understandings satisfied, and their 
hearts perfectly at ease. He has announced, indeed, 
with clearness the fact. But human nature wants a 
great deal more. We must know how a fact so 
anomalous in the government of God could take 
place ; how it was rendered consistent with the 



SERMONS. 



269 



divine holiness to treat the sinner with impunity ; 
how, in short, rebellion has stalked through one of 
the richest provinces of God's empire, and been re- 
warded for its misdeeds by the joys of immortality. 
Jesus Christ alone has expounded this fearful prob- 
lem. Do you ask where ? I answer, in the stable 
of Bethlehem; the garden of Gethsemane; the judg- 
ment-seat of Pilate; in the dying exclamation, "My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " You 
comprehend me. You understand that the complete 
and all-prevailing atonement he wrought out, as the 
substitute of guilty man, is that exposition. By an- 
swering all the designs of justice in punishing, it lias 
removed the necessity of punishing, and given room 
for the exercise of benevolence to our perishing race. 
It has enabled the Divine Magistrate of the universe 
to be "just in justifying," and to receive the polluted 
rebel into the arms of his mercy without himself re- 
ceiving a single stain. This was the grand point on 
which human nature desired to be enlightened ; but 
desired in vain, till the day-spring from on high re- 
vealed the true sacrifice for sin, — a glorious, nay, 
Divine Mediator, who has levelled the mountains of 
separation between heaven and earth ; harmonized 
mercy with moral government, and brought God and 
man together, never to be sundered more. 

Thirdly. The miracles of Jesus prove that he has 
eternal life. If we have a teacher of high preten- 
sions, . blessed be God ! he performed works while 
on the earth which leave no doubt on the mind 
whether he is able to make them good. We have 
not, indeed, enjoyed the opportunity of seeing them 

23* 



270 



SERMONS. 



personally. This is not necessary, nor would be 
proper. Not necessary ; for the question is not, tvho 
saiv them, but, toere they done f And so long as be- 
lief in testimony keeps its place among the sources of 
knowledge, this question can receive but one answer. 
Nor proper ; for where would be the propriety of 
making our earth the scene of constant miracle, that 
is to say, constant transgression of the laws by which 
it is governed ? Is it not plain, that, if these laws be 
good and salutary, the less they are violated the better, 
and that it should take place only on those extraordi- 
nary emergencies when the divine purposes cannot 
be attained otherwise ? And this has been the actual 
course of Providence in all ages. When the eternal 
Son appeared, there was a plea for the universe being 
put in a sort of temporary confusion ; for it was the 
universe's high jubilee. But now that life and im- 
mortality have been brought to light and established 
on sufficient evidence, law has resumed the reins, 
and all things go on as from the foundation of the 
world. Yet it is to be held in devout and everlast- 
ing remembrance, that heaven and earth once bore 
witness to their incarnate God. 

Here advert for a moment to the way in which 
the miracles of Jesus give testimony to his having 
eternal life for sinners. They do so by establishing 
the divinity of his mission, addressing themselves to 
two of the most fundamental laws of belief in the 
human mind : first, that none but the Author of 
nature can invert the regular course of physical 
events ; and, secondly, that it is morally impossible, 
even for him, to invert it that sanction be given to a 



SERMONS. 



271 



falsehood. This was the "Redeemer's own argument 
to the unbelieving Jews : " The works that I do in my 
Father's name, they bear witness of me. If I do not 
the works of my Father, believe me not ; but if I do, 
though ye believe not me, believe the works, that ye 
may know and believe that I am in the Father and 
the Father in me." But there is another, perhaps 
yet more convincing, light in which the subject may 
be viewed. Independently of the question where 
miracles originally came from, they are so many im- 
mediate, practical illustrations of the worker's present 
ability to do whatever He has promised. Many of us 
have read of the way in which the captain of a ship 
gained the confidence of a savage tribe, with whom 
he was trading, and who were not acquainted with 
the use of fire-arms. With the view of impressing 
upon them his immense power to do them good or 
harm, he raised his gun and shot a little bird perched 
on a twig at some considerable distance. This at 
once convinced them of his superiority and power to 
make good both threats and promises. Such is the 
operation of miracles I am now referring to. They 
satisfy the mind, not so much because they prove di- 
rectly a divine mission, — though this they most tri- 
umphantly do, — as because they evince that he who 
can do such works, is able to accomplish all the won- 
ders of grace that he has promised. Look at him 
while performing one of his mighty acts, — unstopping 
the ears of the deaf, or restoring the dead to life, — 
and imagine the reflections passing through the spec- 
tator's mind. Standing over a grave three days 
closed, he commands : " Lazarus, come forth ! " It is 



272 SERMONS. 

done. The sleeping prisoner awakes, comes forth in 
the garments of death, and presents himself to the 
astonished eyes of the multitude a living man ! 
Imagine, now, that you hear from the author of this 
stupendous work, standing in the midst of the amazed 
throng : "I am the resurrection and the life : he that 
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
live." Could there be a plea for doubt ? Has he not, 
we may suppose one of his auditors exclaiming, this 
very moment done a work quite as stupendous, as im- 
possible in the eye of man ? True, I do not see him 
giving eternal life, for I cannot penetrate the veil that 
shrouds the future. But I see he can give it, — I see 
from the result of the present experiment that he 
most certainly has the keys of hell and of death. 
Yes, Lord Jesus, I see that thou art the resurrection 
and the life. How confirming to faith is this view of 
the subject ! Our Saviour has already done great 
things in the earth ; and he has done them that we 
" might have a strong consolation who have fled 
for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us." 
He has done them to strengthen our faith in the 
far greater things he is yet to do, when, coming down 
from heaven in the clouds, he shall change the vile 
bodies of his saints and make them conformable to 
his own glorious body, " according to the working 
whereby he is able even to subdue all things to him- 
self." 

I observe, fourthly, that facts of e very-day occurrence 
prove that Jesus has eternal life. We do not see him 
call a Lazarus from his grave, or feed five thousand 
with two loaves and three fishes, or saying to the 



SERMONS. 



273 



winds and waves, " Peace, be still." But we can 
see sights nearly as extraordinary. We see his gos- 
pel triumphing over the tempestuous sea of the 
human heart, humbling its waves of pride and rebel- 
lion, softening its ferocious passions, elevating its 
grovelling desires; and, to crown all, pouring into it a 
heavenly consolation. We see it taking hold of the 
drunkard, and he comes out of its hands an ascetic ; 
of the miser, and he becomes the open-handed friend 
of God and man ; the sensualist it makes chaste ; 
persecuting Saul, Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ ; 
Mary Magdalen in whom were seven devils, the weep- 
ing follower of her Lord when all men forsook him. 
Oh, there is a spirit, there is a life in the words of 
Jesus, which may be felt but cannot be told ! When 
he speaks directly to the heart, that heart cannot re- 
sist ; it must break ! 

Let it not be insinuated that the change is but tem- 
porary. Here, too, facts are decisive, that the new 
life, breathed into the soul at conversion, not only 
continues as long as the natural, but perceptibly 
grows and becomes vigorous, while the other as per- 
ceptibly decays ; thus verifying the promise : " They 
that be planted in the house of the Lord shall nourish 
in the courts of our God. They shall be fat and 
nourishing ; they shall bring forth fruit in old age." 
The conclusion we draw from all this is, that when 
we put our confidence in Christ we confide in one 
who will never disappoint us. Thus, though unable 
to draw the veil from the scenes of the other life, to 
see what is doing there, we may form a good conjec- 
ture from what he is doing here. He now gives a 



274 



SEEM ON S. 



new life to the soul : can he not give the life of glory 
of which it is an emblem ? Nay, what is the life of 
heaven, on the grand and beautiful principles of his 
system, but the lengthening out and expansion of that 
given in regeneration ? It is not another, but the 
same new life, going on, always growing, and through 
endless ages increasing with the increase of God. 
The seed of grace is the seed of immortality. 

Fourthly. To one other proof I will call your no- 
tice. Every true Christian has, with greater or less 
evidence, witness within himself that Christ has the 
gift of eternal life. " The Spirit itself beareth witness 
with our spirit that we are the children of God." 
We cannot explain this distinctly. It seems to be a 
second consciousness, — an instinct imparted to the 
soul by the Spirit of God, which, taking the place of 
argument and logical deduction, gives all the cer- 
tainty and repose to the mind which it experiences at 
the close of a mathematical demonstration. It is 
connected with, or rather constituted by, such exer- 
cises as these : a conviction of sin and helplessness ; 
a perception of the infinite glory and suitableness of 
the plan of salvation by Christ, and an entire resting 
in it ; a view of the absolute insufficiency of every 
other ; and all this, as we have said, not the result 
of study and meditation, but the direct teaching of 
the Holy Ghost. 

Do not call it a delusion. No man has a right to 
sit in judgment over a sentiment he has never him- 
self experienced ; and, of all unreasonable decisions, 
that is the most unreasonable, which brands a certain 
class of feelings with the odious name of fanaticism, 



SERMONS. 



275 



on no other ground than the incompetency of the 
decider to appreciate them. Besides, that the inter- 
nal persuasion referred to is not a delusion can be 
proved by its excellent effects. It enables the plain- 
est and most unlettered Christian to hold fast his 
confidence in the Saviour, though deprived by his 
position of all ability to investigate the external evi- 
dence. It arms him against the assaults of error ; 
and many are the disciples of the Master, who, with- 
out this anointing of the Holy One, would make 
dreadful shipwreck of their faith. But here is their 
preservative. Let the enemy drive them from all 
their strongholds of argument. There is one where 
he cannot reach them. They can take refuge in their 
own hearts, and appeal to that unutterable sense of 
a Saviour's love which has been shed there by the 
Holy Spirit. They can afford to be discomfited in the 
field of argument ; for who in earth or hell can forbid 
them to feel? Who shall tear from their heart's 
core the persuasion planted there, that Jesus Christ 
came into the world to save sinners, and that nothing 
can separate from his love ? I have little hope that 
this statement will meet the approbation of all who 
hear me. " Pure rant and fanaticism," some are in- 
ternally ejaculating. My devout and fervent prayer 
for every one of you is, that you may die, if you 
have not the grace to live, just such ranters, just 
such fanatics! 

And now, in closing, let me urge upon you the 
serious improvement of what has been said. We 
have not distracted you with a multitude of topics. 
Two truths only have been presented, and of these, 



276 



SERMONS. 



one is so awful, and the other so precious, that you 
are without excuse if you suffer either to be forgotten. 
The first is, that they who reject the gospel Saviour 
reject their life. The second is, they who do receive 
him are eternally secure. What reception do you 
intend giving them ? Where do you propose to build 
for eternity ? Do not say that you are still in sus- 
pense. This would be paying your understanding a 
very sorry compliment, and it is not true. There 
is not one of you but is trusting in something. You 
all have a hope. Whether it be a good hope, or that 
of the hypocrite, which is a spider's web ; — whether 
it be clay, or sand, or stubble, or the foundation of 
the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself 
being the chief corner-stone, — oh, this is a question 
well worth the pains of studying ! and I solemnly 
call upon you to study it with all the powers of your 
souls, remembering the words of Christ : " He that 
is not with me is against me ; and he that gathereth 
not with me, scattereth abroad." Sad will be the 
issue, if, with your opportunities, you build on a 
false foundation. You, and your refuges of lies, 
shall be destroyed together. 

One word to you in the ministry. It is your high 
privilege to be ambassadors of Christ, for the purpose 
of announcing to a lost race the eternal life he has 
secured for all who accept his gracious proffers. 
While you appreciate the honor, forget not its re- 
sponsibilities. Be faithful to the trust reposed in you ; 
and while you point to the golden city in the skies, 
let men see that you are yourselves walking in the 
pathway which leads to it. Imitate, while you preach, 



SERMONS. 



217 



your blessed Master ; so that when he, who is your 
life shall appear, you may, with a goodly number of 
his followers to whose salvation your labors have con- 
tributed, stand before him and say, " Father, here am 
I and the children whom thou hast given me." 

24 



Trustworthiness of the Evangelists. 



XIII. 



TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE EVAN- 
GELISTS. 



John 19 : 34. §rtt am of % solburs forty h sgm ipuxttb Jjis site, 
mxb fortf)foit|j mmz t\zxz oxit hlaab mo foater. 



HE incident here recorded is one which ap- 
pears to have made a singularly deep im- 
pression on the mind of the narrator. The 
! other disciples, panic-stricken at the horrors 
which were accumulating over their Divine Master, 
and alarmed for their personal safety, had forsaken 
him and fled. John alone remained, chained to the 
spot by love to him on whose bosom he had so often 
reclined, and recollections of whose divine tender- 
ness and wisdom clustered round his heart amidst all 
the appalling circumstances which surrounded him. 
He places himself at the foot of the cross, determined 
to be a critical observer of everything that should 
transpire, — suppressing all those emotions, the indul- 
gence of which might interfere with the stern and 
solemn duty which the providence of God had im- 
posed upon him, as the official reporter; and the 
result is, the inestimable privilege, enjoyed by the 
church, of having a faithful record by an eye-witness 
of the whole train of events on which she builds her 
immortal hope. 

Among the astonishing facts which arrest his no- 

24* 




282 



SEEM ONS. 



tice, none appeared so inexplicable as the flow of a 
mingled stream of water and blood from the stricken 
side of his Master. He does not pronounce it in 
so many words a miracle. But that it was in his 
eyes wonderful, — portentous; that there seemed to 
be something, the occurrence of which his readers 
would be slow to credit, is plain from his earnest and 
reiterated affirmation of the truth of his testimony, 
" And he that saw it bare record, and his record 
is true : and he knoweth that he saith true, that 
ye might believe." 

What appeared so unaccountable to the Evangelist, 
has, with the light thrown upon it by modern science, 
lost much of its mystery. It is now perfectly well 
known, that the pericardium, or membranous bag 
which envelopes the heart, contains a quantity of 
lymph, or watery fluid, designed to lubricate the 
parts and enable them to perform with ease the 
actions on which depends the very existence of the 
vital principle. In a sound and normal condition of 
body, the quantity is small; not more than will fill a 
table-spoon. But there is a disease not uncommon, 
frequently produced, physicians tell us, by mental 
agitation, in which the secretion is so abundant, that 
it becomes a regular dropsy, known by the name of 
dropsy of the pericardium. Its connection with 
strong mental excitement, particularly that of grief, 
is stated in all our books of medicine. Usually its 
progress is slow and gradual, as with other dropsical 
affections ; but in a system predisposed by the con- 
currence of causes favorable to its production, a few 
hours will develop it with fearful malignity. The 



SERMONS. 



283 



sudden death by disease of the heart which some- 
times takes place, the patient having previously been 
subjected to depressing influences, may, in many 
cases, be attributed to this source. 

That the blessed Saviour should have suffered dur- 
ing the few last days of his life under this affection, 
is nothing more than might be expected from his un- 
paralleled sufferings. In the garden, such was their 
intensity, that he is heard exclaiming, " My soul is ex- 
ceeding sorrowful, even unto death;" and the sweat 
pours from his body as great drops of blood. What 
a picture of agony is here ! I will not be charged 
with exaggerating, when I say that had a skilful 
modern pathologist been present on the occasion, he 
would have pronounced that the individual before 
him could hardly escape a disease of the heart. The 
sorrows of Gethsemane are followed by the treason 
of Judas ; his trial before the bar of Pilate ; ex- 
posure to the taunts and demoniac rage of an ungodly 
rabble ; the purple robe and crown of thorns, fol- 
lowed by a death the most cruel that the devilish 
ingenuity of man could invent. 

Now, the frail organism of his body was liable 
to all the vicissitudes which those of his younger 
brethren experience ; subject to the same laws of 
life, affected by the same morbific influences, and, if 
not cut. off prematurely, would have perished, as other 
organisms, by disease, or old age. That it should 
have been the subject of a malady so often found in 
companionship with excessive mental torture, need 
not astonish, but rather lead us to adore the depths 
of divine wisdom, which has thus furnished the 



284 



SERMONS. 



church with an irrefragable proof, to endure forever, 
of the reality of our Saviour's death. 

You are aware that infidelity labors to throw 
doubt on the great cardinal fact of our religion, — the 
resurrection of Jesus ; by suggesting that he did not 
really die ; adopting the theory of the Jews, that 
he had only become insensible, and, being resuscitated 
by friends who had access to the body, was able 
on the third day to present himself to his admiring 
disciples a living man. Extravagant as this hypoth- 
esis may be, it is calculated to perplex. No argu- 
ments are more unreasonable, but, at the same time, 
more difficult to answer, than those drawn from 
abstract possibilities. We may appeal to probability 
in its highest form, to the natural and almost invari- 
able course of human events ; still the concession 
that it may he so, involving no direct and palpable 
contradiction, has a chilling effect on the strongest 
minds : we feel the absence of that overpowering 
conviction always desirable, but which seems ab- 
solutely necessary where the truth involves our dear- 
est, nay, eternal interests. Happily, the simple cir- 
cumstance recorded in the text meets effectually this 
hypothesis. A Roman soldier, with spear in hand, 
advances to the victim who had already ceased 
giving proofs of life, though vital action was probably 
not extinct, pierces him in the side, penetrating the 
pericardium, and immediately the phenomenon oc- 
curs, which places the reality of his death beyond the 
reach of scepticism. A wound in that vital part is 
known to be as fatal as injury to the heart itself ; but 
there was not a wound merely ; the membrane was 



SERMONS. 



285 



completely ruptured, and from the gaping orifice pro- 
ceeded " water mingled with blood." The water 
issued, as already stated, from the pericardium. It 
could have had no other source. The torrent of blood 
proved that the aorta, or great artery of the heart, 
had also received mortal injury. Thus, the two facts 
in their combination establish, with surprising force of 
evidence, the truth of both the great events, which 
have ever been regarded the central points of our 
holy faith, — the death and resurrection of the Son 
of God. 

Now, the point to which we call your special at- 
tention is this ; that our narrator had no knowledge 
whatever of the scientific bearings of this tissue 
of events. John did not know that he had a pericar- 
dium which contained a lubricating water. He was 
not a physician, and even had he been, the science of 
those days would have furnished no solution of what 
he saw. Of the relation of the heart to the human 
system, as the great blood-fountain which sends the 
vital fluid leaping through a thousand channels to 
every part ; of the existence of a membranous bag 
enclosing it, and containing lymph, or a watery fluid, 
which in certain conditions of the system, undergoes 
enormous increase ; of the certain fatality that attends 
a rupture of this exquisite machinery, he understood 
as little, as of the chemical composition of water, or 
the anatomy of the brain. The whole affair was a 
paradox, an enigma, and, accordingly, we find him 
giving, in another part of his writings, an allegorical 
solution of it : " This is he that came by water and 
blood, even Jesus Christ ; not by water only, but 



286 



SERMONS. 



water and blood." To understand this, we must bear 
in mind the two great methods of ceremonial purifica- 
tion in the Jewish church, — blood and water, which 
were usually combined. After the transgressor had 
made expiation by sacrifice, sprinkling himself with 
its blood, he was required to wash in pure water, on 
which he was restored to his former standing in the 
house of G-od. The blood and water from the Re- 
deemer's side symbolized to the thoughtful, and 
imaginative John the perfection of his saying work. 
It realized all the expressive adumbrations of the 
Mosaic law. The whole idea of cleansing from moral 
pollution was exhausted in it, so that nothing re- 
mains to be desired, or even thought of. Such is the 
probable meaning of that obscure expression, u He 
came by water and blood ; not by water only, but also 
blood." 

With this we have no concern, however, at present. 
Our object, in the remarks that follow, is to offer a 
few general illustrations of the candor, honesty, and 
truthfulness of the sacred historians of the New 
Testament. The question then presents itself : Why 
did St. John relate an occurrence to him so unintel- 
ligible, and which only tended to strengthen the 
prejudices which his countrymen entertained against 
the truth ? The reason is, he saw it. He could 
not dovetail it with any theory. With his own eyes 
he gazed at the mysterious stream issuing from the 
smitten rock of his salvation, and he could no more 
withhold the mention of what he observed, than that 
of any other fact of which he was personally cogniz- 
ant. As to giving a commentary, does it ever enter 



SERMONS. 



287 



an honest man's mind to give a commentary on what 
he actually saw ? Many might stumble at the record. 
He would probably be called a liar, or a poor fantastic 
simpleton, on whom no dependence could be placed 
within the sphere of his monomaniacal illusions. But 
he must put up with all these consequences ; for the 
transaction occurred in his presence. ' There was no 
mistake in the matter : "He that saw it bare record, 
and his witness is true, and he knoweth that he saith 
true, that ye might believe." 

We will not stop but for a moment to enumerate 
the marks of veracity which a narrative must bear to 
make a claim on our faith. They are well known, 
every day acted on, and so sure that few are de- 
ceived who take pains to avoid it. Of all parts men 
have taken it into their heads to play, that of liars is 
the most difficult, if the story be in the least com- 
plicated or embrace a great variety of particulars. 
Whatever be their skill in deception, we are sure to 
detect them by the Ithuriel spear of questions like 
these : are they circumstantial in their relations, 
giving opportunity to all acquainted with the subject 
to compare their own observations, and ascertain 
whether there be or be not essential discrepancies ? 
Are they, if more than one, accordant with each 
other, and yet not too accordant ; in other words, is 
their harmony so combined with difference of state- 
ment as proves that they did not act on a precon- 
certed scheme ? Is their manner plain, downright, 
simple, without any appearance of art or subtlety ? 
Is it vivid, such as characterizes a man who describes 
what he has seen with his own eyes ? Is it candid, 



288 



SERMONS. 



embracing facts which the witnesses would certainly 
have withheld if they intended fraud ? Are the inci- 
dents such as they were incapable of fabricating if 
they had not taken place ? Finally, are they disin- 
terested ? Can it be shown that they receive no 
advantage from their story, but are exposed by it to 
danger, privation, and death itself ; and is it a fact 
that many have actually endured the last extremity 
of mortal suffering rather than gainsay any part of 
it ? It is not in the nature of falsehood to unite, 
under any circumstances, these characters of truth. 
They are the stamps of Heaven itself, which no in- 
genuity can counterfeit, and they are all found in 
those remarkable narratives from which we draw our 
religious consolations and our most exalted hopes. 

Let us advert to some of them, taking care, how- 
ever, to divest ourselves of all prejudgments. This, 
indeed, is far from easy. Trained from earliest in- 
fancy to profound reverence for our religion, our 
imagination has invested its original chroniclers with 
a mysterious sanctity. We fear to scan them closely, 
lest ive offend the Spirit of God ; and applying to 
them those rules by which we try the productions of 
men like ourselves, seems like the fearful presump- 
tion of those who, under the old economy, would have 
dared to enter the holy place, and curiously survey 
the mystic ark. But this is sheer superstition. Had 
our religion a voice, it would tell us that it is never 
better pleased than when it encounters some critical 
Thomas, who wants to give it and its human witnesses 
a thorough handling. Christians lose much of the 
peace and trustful confidence of piety, by not holding 



SEEM ONS. 



289 



more frequent converse with these excellent men, 
simply as men, bearing all the lineaments of our com- 
mon humanity. Gazing in mute reverence at John 
and Paul in the pulpit, they are bashfully shy to meet 
them in the parlor and the walks of private life : the 
consequence is, deplorable ignorance of that moral 
loveliness of character, that lofty personal integrity 
on which must rest all enlightened belief in their 
divine inspiration. For, I ask, what evidence have 
we that these good men spake as they were moved of 
the Holy Ghost ? Because, you reply, the sacred in- 
fluence was promised by Christ. Most true ; but 
how do we know that it was promised f — from the 
narratives of those who followed him during his 
eventful ministry. Plainly, therefore, our faith in 
the doctrine of their inspiration is based entirely on 
their trustworthiness without it. The truth, that they 
were organs of the Spirit of God, is not a house 
built in the air, but has its basement in the earth : 
it requires the profound and undoubting conviction 
that they were honest men. 

That they were so, look, in the first place, at the 
exactness and overflowing profusion of their ac- 
counts, so opposite to everything we would expect 
from a putter-forth of falsehoods. If deception was 
their object, they were the most extraordinary per- 
sons that ever set up the trade. The events they 
profess to relate took place in the midst of the peo- 
ple, under circumstances of the greatest publicity. 
They occurred but a few years before, so that hun- 
dreds of thousands were still in life, who could judge 
of the correctness of the accounts from personal 

25 



290 



SERMONS. 



knowledge. Never did men lay themselves so com- 
pletely open to detection. The scene of their story 
is not the desert of Arabia, or some obscure corner 
of a province in the outposts of civilization, but the 
very centre of the Roman empire, exceeded by no 
other part in the number of cities and the extent of 
population. They mark, with almost wearisome 
minuteness, the times of the principal transactions, 
the places where they occurred, and the persons who 
figured in them. Jesus was born under Herod the 
Great, in the reign of Augustus Ca3sar, at the time 
when there went forth a decree that the whole empire 
should be taxed. The taxing was first made when 
Cyrenius was governor of Syria. His parents re- 
sided in Nazareth, a town of Galilee. He was born, 
however, in Bethlehem. The place of his baptism 
was Bethabara beyond Jordan. Among the various 
places he is recorded as visiting and honoring with 
exhibitions of his miraculous powers are Cana, 
Sychar, Chorazin, Nain, Gadara, Cesarea, Philippi, 
the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, Decapolis, Jericho, 
Bethany, Bethphage, Jerusalem. In all these, some- 
thing memorable is recorded t to have taken place, 
which the inhabitants could not possibly have forgot- 
ten. The celebrated Sermon on the Mount was 
preached on a hill near the city of Capernaum. The 
water was turned into wine in Cana of Galilee. At 
Nain he restores to life the widow's son. At Bethany 
he raises Lazarus from the dead. If you doubt it, 
go to Bethany. Names of persons are detailed with 
the same precision, as also their parentage, business, 
and civil dignities. It was Nicodemus who came to 



SERMONS. 



291 



J esus by night, and he was a Jewish senator. Joseph 
was another, and his native city was Arimathea. 
Mary, from whom seven demons were cast, belonged 
to Magdala. Whoever doubted the miracle, might 
visit that city and ask the inhabitants. 

Not content with such specifications as these, our 
writers, as if they had set their hearts on provoking 
scrutiny to the utmost, relate events of which there 
were thousands of spectators gathered from every 
part of r the land. Witness the feeding of five 
thousand men, besides women and children, near the 
city of Bethsaida ; many of whom were certainly alive 
twenty-five years after, when one of the Gospels was 
published. But what shall we say of the public ap- 
pearances of Jesus in the midst of the Jewish me- 
tropolis ? Passing over his triumphant procession 
amidst the hosannas of an immense concourse of 
people, strewing garments and branches in his way ; 
his overturning the tables of the money-changers ; 
his memorable exclamation in the temple, where all 
Israel was assembled to keep the feast of tabernacles ; 
fix your eye a moment on the circumstances of his 
trial and death. It occurred at the Passover. The 
trial is stated to have been conducted before the great 
Sanhedrim ; next, before Pilate, by whom it was trans- 
ferred to Herod, who happened to be at that time in 
Jerusalem, who remanded it to the Roman governor. 
He is publicly condemned, buffeted, spit upon, borne 
amid the execrations of the populace to the com- 
mon place of execution, and there suspended be- 
tween two malefactors on the cursed tree. After 
his resurrection, the narrative states he was seen 



292 



SERMONS. 



by five hundred persons at once, many of whom were 
living at the time the account was published. Now, 
I am not assuming the positive truth of these minute 
statements. I only say that they were made, — made 
at the time, — made when every incident was fresh in 
the minds of men ; that their enemies did not at- 
tempt to confute them but by the sword of persecu- 
tion, and listened in sullen silence to the bold chal- 
lenge of Peter, on the day of Pentecost, when he 
declared that, " They had crucified and slain a man 
approved of God among them by miracles and won- 
ders and signs, which," he adds, " God did by him 
in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know." 

And now the question fairly meets us, whether, 
under such circumstances, we can believe that the 
authors of our record were retailers of fiction. If 
so, we must go a step further, and pronounce them 
the most impudent madmen ever permitted to go at 
large ; while their enemies, in not exposing their 
falsehoods, and thus putting a stop to the progress 
of their religion, displayed an idiocy without ex- 
ample in the annals of mankind. 

Observe, next, their agreement in all the essentials 
of their testimony. No criterion of veracity is more 
satisfactory than this, provided it does not" lead to 
suspect a previous combination. When a number 
of independent witnesses attest the same facts, agree- 
ing as to time, place, and other circumstances, we 
are not readily persuaded that they intend a fraud. 
We do not, however, require a perfect harmony. So 
great is the variety of disposition, talent, and mode 
of conceiving things among men, that no two indi- 



SERMONS. 



293 



viduals will give the same identical statement of 
what passed before their eyes. A part of the trans- 
action which may have riveted the notice of the one 
may have been scarcely perceived by the other, and 
soon forgotten ; consequently, there not only may 
but must be discrepancies in their statements, which 
enlightened judges in the matter consider so many 
proofs of their substantial veracity. On the other 
hand, too complete a harmony is always suspicious ; 
we pronounce it unnatural, and cry out u a con- 
spiracy ! " 

With regard to our writers, — their general agree- 
ment cannot but impress every candid inquirer. Pol- 
low them from chapter to chapter in their thrilling 
story of our Redeemer's life and death ; compare 
their accounts of the miracles he wrought ; his 
sublime discourses ; his instructive, and delightful 
parables ; his stern reproofs, and awful predictions ; 
— you find their harmony as surprising, as it must 
be satisfying, to a mind earnest in search of truth. 
There are apparent exceptions, doubtless. Nay, we 
grant that some of their disagreements have hitherto 
resisted every attempt at solution. But is it not cer- 
tain, then, that they were not in concert? Had they 
purposed to deceive, would they not most studiously 
have endeavored to keep clear of all collision or dis- 
tant appearance of contradiction ? How different 
their actual policy, if policy that may be called which 
is no policy, but the plain, straightforward course of an 
ingenuous mind. Whether they had seen each other's 
narratives is a question debated by the learned ; but, 
in whatever way we decide it, none will assert that 

25* 



294 



SERMONS. 



they made an improper use of them. Each pursues 
his own track ; each relates what he personally saw, 
or thoroughly knew from other sources, without 
troubling himself to ask whether there was another 
writer on the same subject in existence. What a 
beautiful proof of the high, unbending integrity of 
these men of God ! 

Another feature is their extraordinary candor. It 
is a hard necessity, says the proverb, which compels 
a man to speak ill of himself. Even where one has 
a strong disposition to be honest, and tell a plain, 
unvarnished tale, he must have an uncommon strength 
of character to maintain his purpose when stared in 
the face by personal humiliation. History can furnish 
a very small number of examples where all selfish 
regards have been completely merged in the love of 
truth. But some it does furnish, and the brightest 
of them is that of our excellent writers. They take 
not the least pains in the world to conceal circum- 
stances which might expose their Master and them- 
selves to contempt ; nor even try to color them. As 
to their Master, they tell us he was born in a filthy 
caravansera, the citizen of a town so infamous that 
it became a Jewish proverb, — " Can any good thing 
come out of Nazareth ? " He lived in extreme in- 
digence, was despised by the literati and his own 
kinsfolk, condemned at last as a vile malefactor, and 
joined with robbers and murderers in his death. Nor 
did he, in meeting his fate, display that boiling cour- 
age so much admired and always expected in the 
world's heroes. He was exceedingly afraid of his 
approaching sufferings, and his agony broke forth in 



SEEMONS. 



295 



a sweat, " as it were great drops of blood." All this 
they tell, though they knew that such a life, termi- 
nated by such a death, must be to the Jews a stum- 
blingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness. As to 
themselves, they own they were bred to the lowest 
occupations, — one of them being an infamous tax- 
gatherer, the others fishermen. Freely they confess 
their stupidity, their worldly ambition, their almost 
incredible unbelief in the midst of miracles, their 
shocking cowardice in forsaking him during his last 
trial. On one occasion, two of them are described 
as engaging in an idle dispute, fomented by their 
mother, which should be prime minister in his king- 
dom. On another, they are thrown into frightful 
despair by a storm, while he was in the midst of 
them. On another, with strange bigotry and fe- 
rocity, they ask him to do them the favor of calling 
down fire from heaven on a whole village of Samari- 
tans. During his awful agonies in Gethsemane, they 
confess that, instead of cheering him with their lov- 
ing sympathy, they " fell asleep" Nor do they con- 
ceal that a short half-hour before his betrayal his 
holy soul was wounded by a strife that arose among 
them, who should be greatest. Can we suspect that 
men so ingenuous in confessing their misconduct, so 
ample in particulars which disgraced both them and 
their cause, were sporting fables ? Such is not the 
stuff which fabulists employ. 

Another fine characteristic of truth is the charm- 
ing simplicity of their narrative. Everything is plain, 
easy, unforced. In reading them, we seem to be 
reading a story taken down from the lips of some 



296 



SERMONS. 



lovely children, describing to their mates something 
which they had just been witnessing. With what 
simplicity do they begin their accounts ! The reader's 
mind is not warmed up for receiving favorable im- 
pressions by pompous exordiums, or elaborate essays 
on the great importance of the subject. Like plain 
people, who have no other business but to state facts, 
they enter on it immediately ; and when the business 
is done they are done also. When miracles are de- 
scribed, it is in few words. No previous expectation 
is excited ; no rhetorical exclamations uttered on the 
grandeur of the achievement, or the majesty of the 
performer. Remark, also, that they are by no means 
fond of multiplying them, though they had am- 
ple opportunity. Jesus lived thirty-three years on 
the earth, while his public ministry was limited to 
two or three. Why did they not fill up the previous 
thirty with magnificent exhibitions of his wonder- 
working power ? Why do we not find in our gos- 
pels, as in the apocryphal writings, forged a century 
after, marvellous accounts of the prodigies wrought 
by the infant Jesus and his mother Mary ? Had they 
been men of art, they would not have left to the 
imagination so long a blank in the life of their 
Divine Master. But as the honest souls knew noth- 
ing on the subject, they chose to say nothing. 

Another pleasing feature is the absence of all at- 
tempts (as with John, in the text) to give rational 
expositions of their statements. So perfectly do 
they seem to know their truth, that the question 
whether any part needs the bolstering of a few re- 
flections in order to make them probable, never sug- 



SERMONS. 



297 



gcsts itself. In consequence, there are some things 
in their story that appear strange, which we are 
apt to wonder they did not elucidate. Is it not 
strange, for example, that Judas should have so long 
continued with the Saviour, a witness to his miracles 
and teachings, and prove in the issue a traitor ? We 
are told that the people continued to disbelieve, even 
after they had seen diseases healed by a word, and, as 
in the case of Lazarus, the coffined dead rise from their 
graves. We almost involuntarily ask, whether this 
is 'possible ? It appears that he ate his last passover 
with the disciples a whole day before the appointed 
time. In these cases, they might easily have smoothed 
the asperities of their narrative by explanatory com- 
ments. But they felt that writing comments was not 
their mission. The incidents described might ap- 
pear improbable, but they knew their truth, and that 
their whole work was to "testify what they did 
know." 

Their style, also, richly merits notice. It was the 
remark of a distinguished French scholar, that, if 
ever Truth should make herself visible, and hold 
conversation with men, she would employ the lan- 
guage of the writers of the New Testament. No 
man of taste will think the sentiment exaggerated. 
It is characterized throughout by so sweet and almost 
infantile artlessness ; is so pure, transparent, and 
unstudied, that we would be as much surprised to find 
a lie concealed in it as were the guardian-angels of 
our first parents at detecting Satan in the bowers 
of Eden. The ear is not seduced, by the melody of 
finely balanced periods, to lend her influence in bias- 



298 



SERM ON S. 



ing the judgment. No turgid metaphors captivate 
the imagination ; nay, there is not in the whole four 
Gospels one pompous or shining expression. All is 
pure, unadorned, lovely nature. Thank God, Chris- 
tians, that, if you have been deceived in your book, 
you have been well deceived. I would rather receive 
the falsehoods of such men than many other men's 
truths. 

But I must hasten to the crowning thought, — a 
thought which, in the judgment of every enlightened 
and good man, must put the question before us at 
rest forever. It is the character which the writers set 
before us of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ. 

With a few reflections on this topic, which will 
come infinitely short, however, of doing it justice, 
we shall conclude our discourse. 

When I open the New Testament to examine its 
varied contents, I meet a phenomenon, more wonder- 
ful than all its miracles united, in the picture which it 
gives of a perfect moral being. I take up this being, 
at the commencement of his existence, and make 
him my study. I follow him through the whole of 
his eventful career, step by step ; treasuring up every 
word, analyzing every action and thought, with all 
the severity of philosophical scepticism. I enter with 
him into every company, and mark his deportment to 
friends and enemies ; to the wise and foolish ; in 
prosperity and adversity ; in honor and dishonor. 
I sit with him in the house of the despised publican ; 
on the well-stone, while he unfolds to a Samaritan 
woman all (to use her own expressive language) 



SERMONS. 



299 



that ever she did ; and in the temple, while he eon- 
founds the Jewish doctors. I sail with him on the 
Sea of Tiberias, and ascend with him the Mount of 
Olives. I follow in his train when he rides in 
triumph through the streets of Jerusalem, and join 
the little band with whom he ate his last supper. 
L accompany him to the garden of Gethsemane, and 
the judgment-seat of Pilate. I attend him with the 
beloved disciple to the cross, — stand under it, and 
hear his expiring groans. 

After all this intimate companionship ; this pursu- 
ing him like his shadow wherever he goes ; this con- 
stant inspection of every movement, every utterance, 
every look, I sit down and calmly ask, — What is 
the impression he produces on my mind ? Does 
he realize all my imagination can conceive, when 
it strains its powers to form a notion of the being 
whom God would send into the world as the incar- 
nated image of himself, if he purposed to bestow such 
a favor? My answer is, he does, he does. His ex- 
cellence is complete. I cannot, under the intensest 
actings of the conceptive faculty, alter, without de- 
facing, a single feature in the bright character he 
exhibited. I can add nothing to the wisdom of his 
discourses, the affecting grace and sweetness of his 
manner, and the lustre of his virtue. I can do noth- 
ing but fall on my knees, and exclaim with the cen- 
turion, " Surely this man was the Son of God." 
In love and charity to men, he stands alone. His 
> whole thought was the communication of happiness, 
and there is not an action of his life in which private 
ease or honor was the object of pursuit. He existed 



300 



SERMONS. 



but for others. Sometimes we read of his weeping, 
but never over his own unmerited sorrows ; some- 
times, of his rejoicing; but never over a favorable 
change in his own fortunes. He wept for the unbe- 
lief and perversity of men ; he rejoiced on such oc- 
casions as that, when hearing of the success of his 
gospel, he exclaimed, " I thank thee, Father, Lord 
of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things 
from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto 
babes. Even so, Father ; for so it seemed good in 
thy sight." Sometimes, we hear of a slight emo- 
tion of anger coloring his pallid cheek ; but it was 
always the displeasure of love, and aimed at the 
amendment of its object. In numberless instances, 
he gave proof that all power was committed to him 
in heaven and in earth ; but amid all his cruel provo- 
cations he never employed it for the punishment of 
offenders, — never. All his miracles were benevolent, 
directly productive of human happiness. All the 
agonies of the cross could not weaken that love, 
strong as death, which he bore even to his murderers. 
In those memorable words uttered just before his dis- 
solution, you have the whole soul of Jesus. " Father, 
forgive them ; they know not what they do." 

But we have not yet touched the sublimest feature 
of this remarkable delineation. In outward condi- 
tion, he was a poor Jew of the lowest rank, the 
resident of a contemptible village. For such a one 
to aim at some obscure distinction among the Rabbis 
entitling him to hold forth occasionally in a country . 
synagogue, would have indicated more than ordinary 
ambition. But his took a nobler flight. Can we be- 



SERMONS. 



301 



lieve it possible, that from bis cradle to bis grave, the 
breast of this ignoble Galilean was heaving with 
a project which, for splendor, sublimity, and magnifi- 
cent results, left behind it, at an infinite distance, all 
that ever entered into the heart of man to conceive ? 
He determined to reform the world; to set up a king- 
dom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy 
Ghost, which, scorning the narrow limits of his own 
country, of Greece, of Asia, of the Roman empire, 
should extend over every nation and kindred, tongue 
and people. He saw the moral universe alienated 
from its Maker ; lost in darkness and corruption. 
He formed the purpose to bring it back. Unwearied, 
and unappalled by difficulties, he silently went on, 
laying the foundation for its execution, leaving to his 
disciples, when he departed from earthly scenes, the 
peremptory command : " Go and preach my gospel to 
every creature ; go and teach all nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost ; " " and lo, I am with you 
alway." I have said that he was a Jew, but there 
was nothing Jewish in the soul that could devise so 
wonderful a scheme as this ! 

Such is the portrait. Now let us ask, who are the 
limners ? From whose hands do we receive this 
exquisite painting ? From Plato, or Socrates, — from 
a college of Greek or Eoman literati, who combined 
their splendid powers to form a single picture, which 
should exhibit to the gaze of an admiring world the 
beau-ideal of human perfection ? Did it even origi- 
nate from this source, we would have cause to 
wonder. There is nothing in the literature of classi- 

26 



802 



SERMONS. 



cal antiquity which approaches within a measurable 
distance of the portraiture of Jesus. The character 
was too sublime for the miserable sophisters of Greece 
and Rome even to appreciate when set before them. 
How, then, could they invent it ? 

But we need not reason on this hypothesis ; for we 
know that the painters were a few low-born, illiterate 
Galileans, who earned their daily subsistence by 
selling fish in the paltry Tillages which bordered on 
the Sea of Gennesareth. Was it in the power of such 
men to soar aboYe the dull realities of life, and create 
the most wonderful combination of moral beauty 
that has ever engaged the admiration of the world, 
by a mere effort of imagination ? The last thing of 
which persons in their situation are capable is a 
happy invention. The vulgar never abstract and re- 
combine the qualities of objects that meet their 
senses : they cannot- therefore describe, unless you 
place directly under their eyes, the scene to be de- 
lineated. They may be copyists, but nothing more. 

Suppose, however, they feel the stirrings of am- 
bition, and try their hand at a fancy sketch, selecting 
as their subject the idea of a perfect man. What 
kind of character would they exhibit ? Do you not 
see, at once, that it would partake of all the grossness 
of their occupation and habits ? Set a Nantucket 
smackman to sketch a hero, and you may easily guess 
the result. In the first place, he will be a magnifi- 
cent-looking personage, seven feet high. He will 
have the voice of a Stentor, and the brawny chest of 
Hercules. With kindliness of temper he will combine 
a roughness approaching to ferocity. He will have a 



SEEM NS. 



303 



taste for fighting, and not dislike the sight of blood. 
If endowed with the gift of miracles, he will amuse 
himself with rolling mountains as ninepins ; will be 
always thundering and lightening ; and, in the rapid- 
ity of executing his projects, will annihilate time 
and space. The whole, in short, will be a vile daub, 
that would betray its authors to the first glance of 
criticism. 

If any reply, that the apostles were of a higher 
grade of intellect than the persons supposed, we deny 
it ; and are sustained by their whole history, as given 
by themselves. Look at their low ambition ; their 
puerile contentions with each other ; their stupidity, 
which drew, from the most meek and patient of 
teachers, the almost querulous exclamation, " How is 
it that ye do not understand ? " Think of their car- 
nal notions of his kingdom, and that blood-thirsty — 
should I not rather say, diabolical — spirit they evinced 
in calling on him to bring fire from heaven on the 
Samaritans, and acknowledge that our four Gospels 
would be compositions very different from what we 
find them, were they the inventions of fancy. That, 
as portraits of intellectual and moral loveliness, they 
realize our fairest dreams, admits of but one solution. 
They are copies, — like John's blood and water, — 
copies taken from existing facts ; the authors had the 
original before them. There is the secret ! So Jesus 
was ; so he felt; so he spoke and acted. I cannot 
doubt on this point. Nearly as soon would I think 
of doubting my own existence. 

We have dwelt so long on the subject that no time 
remains for a regular application. We conclude with 



304 



SERMONS. 



exhorting you to thank God for the precious and 
faithful record he has put into your hands. He 
might have addressed you differently. He might 
have spoken in thunder ; have written his will with a 
pen of fire in the sky ; have sent to you Gabriel from 
his cherubic throne. But is it not far more delight- 
ful and satisfactory to hear the familiar voice of those 
who share in our common nature ? What condescen- 
sion on the part of our Divine Parent ! First, he 
sends his Son, who, before announcing his revelations, 
becomes a man; and when he ascended to his 
Father's house, left the completion of Ms work to men; 
as if man, being the object of grace, humanity should 
impress its stamp on every stone of the great building 
of mercy. Cultivate an acquaintance with these 
earthly vessels in which are laid up heavenly treas- 
ures. There is nothing to terrify you in their 
aspect. If an angel were the messenger, the ques- 
tion would sadly perplex, what degree of credit 
should be given to the strange apparition, and on 
what principles of evidence a case so novel should be 
decided. But here you converse with your brethren, 
bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh ; whom 
you understand ; in whom you can confide ; precisely 
as you trust in parent, wife, and familiar friends ; 
and, believe me, the more you read them without 
preoccupation, simply regarding their human cred- 
ibility, the more you will be strengthened in your 
Christian faith, — in the belief of those glorious facts 
on which rest your eternal hopes. Happy are they, 
who study their religion, — not in formulas ; not in 
bristling theological propositions ; not in the contro- 



SERMONS. 



305 



versial writings of divines, nor even in the weekly 
sermons of their preachers ; but in the pure, gushing, 
translucent fountain, — the holy gospels and acts of 
the apostles. Their life-giving truths will steal into 
the heart with a gentle force that cannot be resisted ; 
there will be a reflection on the soul of their own 
simple, inimitable beauty ; and, beholding in them, as 
in an unsullied mirror, the glory of Jesus, you will 
be changed into the same image, from glory to glory. 

26* 



Price or otjr Redemption. 



XIV. 



THE PRICE OF OUR REDEMPTION. 



\ Car. 6 : 20. Jxrr un bought fcritfj h pri«. 



N these words the apostle calls our attention to 
the fundamental doctrine of Christianity, on 
which he delighted to expatiate with the 
earnestness of one who felt that his eternal 
hope was embarked in it. On this doctrine we pro- 
pose offering a few remarks, and shall attempt to 
show that he does not overrate its value : " Ye are 
bought with a price." Evidently a previous servi- 
tude is here implied. The natural state of men is a 
dreadful state, and may be compared to that of one 
reduced by his crimes to a miserable slavery. We 
are under the high displeasure of Him who made us ; 
consequently strangers to true happiness in the pres- 
ent world, and exposed to unknown evils in the next. 
From this state Christians are delivered, — are rein- 
stated in the lost favor of their God, and look for- 
ward, with joyful hope, to a heavenly felicity. This 
complete reversal of a penal sentence which had 
been solemnly pronounced, our text informs us, was 
not, and, in the nature of things, could not be an 
arbitrary or purely gratuitous act on the part of God. 
There were considerations of infinite importance 



310 



SERMONS. 



which rendered the strict execution of the penalty of 
law absolutely necessary. Previously, therefore, to 
the reversal, these considerations were to be fairly 
met and satisfied. This has been done by the suffer- 
ings and death of Jesus Christ, which constitute, 
therefore, the price or equivalent of our redemption, 
as they render to God, in his judicial capacity, all that 
would have been gained by the rigid execution of the 
sentence of law. To express the thought in other 
words : the death of the Son of God has, by answer- 
ing the designs of punishment, caused the necessity 
of it to cease, producing so happy a state of things, 
in relation to the believer, that it has become right, 
proper, accordant with every principle of good gov- 
ernment, to rescue him from his wretchedness, and 
restore him to the original honors of his race. This 
is the great truth we intend to illustrate. 

First, then, let us inquire what those important 
considerations are which rendered it unsuitable to 
save the transgressor by a mere gratuitous act of 
mercy. 

Secondly, let us mark, with pious thankfulness, 
the complete removal of these considerations by the 
equivalent rendered in the sufferings and death of 
the Son of God. Thus shall we understand with 
what meaning and emphasis the apostle declares, 
" Ye are bought with a price." 

When we say that there are powerful reasons why 
the Deity should not gratuitously forgive the sinner, 
we do not affirm that under no circumstances is it 
possible for him so to exercise his clemency. This 
view has been taken. But, I confess, I cannot join 



SERMONS. 



311 



in the hardy sentiment. Why may not the uni- 
versal Monarch do, occasionally and in certain con- 
junctures, what is done by the meanest earthly poten- 
tate, — say to a poor trembling child of guilt, without 
the formality of a previous atonement, " Be of good 
cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee." 

But while we cheerfully yield thus much, — more 
from courtesy than because we know the fact, — we 
must protest against the strange notion of those who, 
erecting the rare and only possible exception into the 
general rule (the most absurd of all sophistries), 
contend that the pardoning prerogative must be thus 
exercised in all cases whatever. It is, indeed, sur- 
prising that a doctrine which, if practised among 
the communities of men on the earth, would bring 
them to an end in one generation, should be thought 
a highly reasonable maxim of government for the 
great universal Legislator. The guardians of hu- 
man law, it is confessed, must punish for the sake of 
moral influence. If the belief was allowed to prevail 
that laws were mere monitions , — that there was no 
serious intention to punish disobedience, — the flood- 
gates of crime would be opened at once, and an 
overwhelming torrent of licentiousness would roll 
over the land. None would be safe but in bidding 
the world good-night, and flying from all communion 
with his species. Our planet would be a hell, and its 
inhabitants fiends ! 

All this is plain, and is not denied by them ; yet, 
at the same time, they indulge the whimsical conceit 
that the like necessity of punishing does not exist in 
the government of God. The train of thought which 



312 



SERMONS. 



leads them to this is, perhaps, something like the fol- 
lowing : The civil magistrate, they say, must punish 
because he has no other method of influencing the 
conduct of his subjects except by awakening their 
fears. Punishment, however it may carry the ap- 
pearance of superior power, is truly the consequence 
of his weakness, his utter inability to control the 
internal principles of action, — the hidden spring 
within. But the all-pervading influences of God can 
reach the heart. The Author of our spirits is under 
no necessity of providing an array of outward motive 
to operate on a will, all whose movements he can, 
at any time and all times, direct by secret agency. 
Now, I ask, what is the real import of this language, 
but that man is devoid of moral responsibility ? God, 
it seems, can effect his purposes in him by immediate 
agency. He can go into him, — make him virtuous 
without motive, and against it. It follows, that the 
sins of men being the effect of his refusing to act, 
when, by acting, he could have prevented them, are 
not the proper objects of punishment or even serious 
blame ! However earnestly those we are opposing 
may disavow these principles, they are the corner- 
stone of the whole scheme of unconditional forgive- 
ness. 

But they are false. The common sense of man- 
kind declares them to be so, and pronounces that any 
other scheme of God's governing rational and free 
agents than addressing them by moral inducements, 
leaving the issue to their own unbiased choice, would 
be a monstrous absurdity ! The Creator, it is true, 
was under no obligation to make us free. Our lib- 



SEEM ONS. 



313 



erty is the gift of his sovereign goodness. But this 
constitution being supposed, the eternal laws of truth 
demanded that he should respect the work of his 
own hands, and the moral nature he had bestowed 
upon us. Look at facts. When he placed our 
first parents in Paradise did he think of controlling 
their will by secret agency ? So far from it he, with 
a full view of the lamentable result, placed them within 
sight of the fatal tree. How strikingly was the same 
principle exemplified in his treatment of ancient 
Israel ! It was wonderful. The expressions of his 
desire for their continuance in obedience are so em- 
phatic that we, in our ignorance and narrowness of 
conception, are amazed at his not securing it by any 
degree of violence necessary to the end. But the 
laws of his administration must not be sacrificed ; 
and he contents himself with giving this solemn 
warning : " Behold, I set before you a blessing and a 
curse ; a blessing if ye obey the command of the 
Lord your God, a curse if ye will not." And how 
did he put honor on his beloved Son when he ap- 
peared on the earth ? That, on different occasions, 
the laws of material nature were suspended ; that a 
virgin conceived and brought forth a son ; that a star 
was lighted up to direct the steps of inquiring sages 
to the stable in Bethlehem ; that, during his whole ca- 
reer, he stood confessed to be creation's Lord, by the 
ready obedience she paid to his commands, — all this 
I know. But I know, too, that even at this memora- 
ble era, the will of man, enshrined in its high sanc- 
tuary, maintained all her rights ; and He who 
rebuked the winds and waves, reverenced the laws 

27 



814 



SERMONS. 



of our moral constitution. Witness that pathetic 
address : " Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! how often 
would I have gathered thy children together, as a 
hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and 
ye would not." 

Let us, then, fix deeply in our minds, as a truth not 
to be controverted, that we enjoy the noble pre'emi- 
nence of being subject to a government of choice ; 
that there is a something within us divine, which must 
not be coerced ; nay, more, that our great Ruler acts 
honorably toward us in making this distinction the 
basis of his whole system of moral discipline. Is it 
asked, what he hath done for us, seeing we have re- 
moved the supposition of violence on the will ? I 
reply, that he has fenced the path of obedience by the 
most aivful penalties. This was not an arbitrary 
arrangement. Having made us free, and determined 
to treat us as such, he was bound to provide such a 
quantity of inducement to virtue as would afford a 
rational security against transgression. Nay, I go fur- 
ther and aver that, as the great Conservator of gen- 
eral happiness, he was bound to provide the strongest 
possible motive against sin. To say that a lesser in- 
ducement was offered than the strongest possible, is 
to say that a less security was provided than the case 
admitted ; and would not every delinquent, detected 
and confronted by his judge, be able, under such 
circumstances, to address the Holy One thus : " I 
complain not that thou didst refuse to stop me in my 
headlong course, by doing violence to my moral na- 
ture ; but why didst thou neglect offering such 
cogent persuasives as would have proved thy full 



SERMONS. 



315 



determination to maintain the honor of thy law ? 
Thou mightst have denounced on sin thy. burning 
wrath. Why didst thou not ? Then I would have 
viewed it with other eyes ; I would have seen that 
thou art in earnest in prohibiting it, and who can tell 
whether I might not at this moment be pure as the 
seraph who stands before thy throne ? I deny thy 
right, God, to complain of a rebellion to which the 
temptation was held out of impunity in crime." 

There is a reflection on this subject, to which I 
have alluded, but which deserves more formal notice. 
The empire of Glod is one. And this holds true, we 
have reason to think, of the physical universe. Im- 
mense as are the distances between those mighty orbs 
which revolve in mystic dance with our earth around 
the sun, they are truly but parts of one magnificent 
system, in which, by a reciprocal balancing and attrac- 
tion, each becomes subservient to the well-being of all 
the rest. The bold language of the poet is thought 
to be philosophically true : 

" From nature's chain, whatever link you strike, 
Tenth or tenth thousand, breaks the chain alike. 
Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly, — 
Planets and suns rush lawless through the sky." 

Whether this be so is conjectural ; but that such a 
mutual influence prevails in the universe of mind, 
that from the noblest archangel down through all in- 
termediate classes of rational beings to the meanest 
child of Adam, there is a " chain of strong connec- 
tion and nice dependency," is not conjecture, but 
one of those sublime truths communicated to us by 
divine revelation. We are told that the chariots of 



316 



SERMONS. 



God are twenty thousand, yea, thousands of angels, 
all of whom are perfectly acquainted with man, and 
take the deepest interest in the plan devised for his 
salvation. They desire to ]ook into its mysteries, 
and their instruction is represented to be one of the 
principal objects contemplated by its glorious Author. 
" To the intent that now unto the principalities and 
powers in heavenly places might be known by the 
church the manifold wisdom of God." I call up 
this fact to impress upon you the deeply interesting 
truth, that, though you may think yourselves a very 
inconsiderable part of God's moral dominion, a 
mere molecule or atom, there is yet such connec- 
tion with every other part and every other atom, that 
your example may be of mighty efficacy throughout 
the whole system. It is natural to believe that 
when the apostasy took place, worlds of free agents 
like ourselves waited in anxious suspense to see what 
would be done by the insulted Lawgiver. Had he in- 
stantly pronounced an unconditional pardon, who 
will venture to predict the consequences ? Some 
idea of the consequences may be formed by consider- 
ing what led to this very apostasy. Our first parents 
yielded to the seductions of a being who presented 
himself to them in the character of an unpunished 
transgressor! He had eaten of the forbidden tree, 
with benefit instead of harm : from which they in- 
ferred that the Deity wanted either will or power to 
execute his threat, — probably both, — and thus were 
they ruined by the very expectation of escape. If 
previously they had known that a band of rebellious 
spirits had fallen from the battlements of heaven to 



SERMONS. 



317 



writhe in eternal pain, might they not have come tri- 
umphant from the conflict, — might they not? But 
pardon, God, the presumption of thy creature. 

There were doubtless good reasons for leaving 
our first parents ignorant of so terrific a lesson ; and 
their resources of resistance were, without it, am- 
ply sufficient, as they had the express declaration 
of Him who cannot lie, that death is the wages of 
sin. 

I have thus endeavored to show you, from the very 
nature of moral government, that the forgiveness of 
sinners is a work of serious difficulty ; nay, that there 
are considerations rendering it nearly, if not abso- 
lutely, impossible. Far from us be the thought, with 
which we are sometimes charged, of imputing to God 
the temper of a vindictive despot. We believe that 
he is infinitely benevolent, a fathomless ocean of 
goodness. But, at the same time, we shall not allow 
ourselves to forget that it is a goodness worthy of 
him, and exercised in perfect harmony with every 
other attribute in his nature. It is wise, holy, enlight- 
ened goodness, — takes extended views of things, and 
will never sacrifice to any partial regards the cause 
of universal happiness. Let our rationalists, as they 
call themselves, combat these ideas with as much 
earnestness as they permit themselves to feel on any 
religious theme, — the common apprehensions of 
mankind are against them. A feeling of misery and 
sad foreboding of being under the displeasure of a 
powerful and inexorable avenger, is as congenial to 
the human mind as the sense of religion itself. 
Wherever we go, in lands unblest with gospel light, 

27* 



318 



SERMONS. 



we discover altars smoking with blood, dark and 
sepulchral temples, rites of awful import, pallid and 
fear-stricken worshippers. Why is this ? 

It is easy, indeed, to reply that these are the com- 
mon effects of superstition, whose characteristic it is 
to inspire false and groundless terrors. But, I ask, 
why is this ? Why does superstition so uniformly 
clothe herself in blackness, and speak in thunder ; 
so rarely present an object of worship divested of ter- 
rible attributes, that in the whole history of the world 
we scarce find an instance of a false religion which 
inspired its votary with courage or consolation ? 
Why, even in Christian lands, are those gloomy repre- 
sentations we are not afraid of advocating, so exten- 
sively popular, that, in many places, their opponents 
cannot make their voice to be heard when they ask 
to be recognized as a sect ? They are not wanting in 
zeal for propagating, what they consider, more pleas- 
ing views of the divine administration ; they build 
churches, they send from the press eloquent appeals 
inviting their fellow-men to join them in the delight- 
ful contemplation of a Being all-merciful, who knows 
not how to punish. Yet they are hardly listened to ; 
their splendid temples are passed by, and the multi- 
tude, of both wise and foolish, are seen thronging to 
those conventicles where it is not scrupled to be said 
that " a God all mercy is a God unjust,'' and the 
flaming sword of penal retribution is unceasingly 
brandished in the sinner's face. Many, even, who 
strongly dislike our doctrine, pay its teacher the 
compliment of sitting beneath his instructions, — 
turning away from the honeyed rhetoric of the 



SERMONS. 



319 



very men with whom they profess community of 
sentiment, as if they were listening to that glozing 
tale which betrayed our first progenitors to ruin : 
" Hath God said, < Ye shall surely die ? ' Ye shall 
not surely die ! " Ah ! There is a deep inborn sense 
of right, in every human bosom, which approves our 
statements. There is a tribunal, in the man himself, 
to which we carry our appeal, and before which we 
urge with victorious energy that the righteous Judge 
must vindicate his insulted laws, though a world 
perish ! This conviction it is which gives the evan- 
gelical ministry all their power over you. You may 
dislike the men, and find fault with many of their 
representations. You may complain of their scho- 
lastic phraseology, contracted views, and neglect of 
those winning arts, which, without detracting from 
the fidelity of their instructions, would render them 
tenfold more persuasive. Yet, with all their defects, 
they touch a chord which seldom fails to vibrate. 
Their voice, though harsh and dissonant its tones, is 
echoed by a voice from the bottom of your hearts, 
and you tremble at the difficulties of your salvation. 

We now proceed to consider the manner in which 
these difficulties have been overcome by the suffer- 
ings and death of Jesus Christ. It is not my design 
at present to describe these sufferings. You are ac- 
quainted with the history, and know that a more dis- 
mal tragedy was never acted on the world's surface. 
The wildest imagination cannot paint deeper agonies 
than those undergone by this immaculate and Divine 
Personage. We gaze at the Heaven-deserted victim, 
hanging convulsed on the cursed tree, scarcely know- 



320 



SERMONS. 



ing what to think of the government of God, which 
permits such a shocking catastrophe. Bnt our per- 
plexity instantly ceases when we learn the true char- 
acter of this amazing transaction. " He was wound- 
ed for our transgressions, and bruised for our ini- 
quities ! " 

If asked how the death of Christ produces the 
effect we ascribe to it, of removing the obstacles to 
our salvation, I answer, that, however unable to 
fathom the depths of this mystery, I yet find no diffi- 
culty in understanding that it is a complete answer 
to the reasons, which, as we have seen, placed the 
great Ruler under the necessity of punishing. I 
think I see, with perfect clearness of evidence, that, 
in the terrible example of severity exercised on the 
most exalted Being who has appeared in the society 
of men, the whole family of moral agents in heaven 
and earth, so far from losing motives to obedience by 
the sinner's salvation, have been infinitely gainers. 
Whether our proposition contains the whole truth I 
know not; but it is amply sufficient for my faith 
and hope. I need no other view of the efficacy of 
my Saviour's death in order to understand that it is 
a proper " price " of my redemption. 

There are those, however, who cannot enjoy the 
comfort of this cheering doctrine. It has a very ex- 
traordinary aspect in their eyes. Especially do they 
scruple the reasonableness and justice of transferring 
the pains denounced on guilt to an innocent person. 
Objections of this nature often proceed from honest 
hearts, and are therefore not to be treated with con- 
tempt. 



SERMONS. 



321 



As to the extraordinary character of the fact, we 
grant it ; but we plead in its favor the equally extraor- 
dinary emergency. A world of immortals was to 
be brought back, from a foul revolt, to God and hap- 
piness. But to bring them back without giving a les- 
son to the universe, sufficient at least to neutralize this 
example of impunity, would have been, as we have 
proved, a wanton wrong on the whole moral kingdom 
of God. Certain preparatory arrangements, then, were 
necessary ; a demonstration must be made, — if pos- 
sible, some imposing, sensible representation, — to 
seize forcibly on the mind, and by calling up awful 
ideas of the heinousness of sin fortify it against the 
perilous sight of rebels aggrandized by transgression. 
Now, I contend, the wit of man, tasked to the ut- 
most, never would fall upon an expedient half so 
efficacious as that actually adopted, — exhibiting to 
men and angels the spectacle of a spotless being — a 
partner in the throne which had been dishonored — 
voluntarily undergoing an accursed death in place of 
the guilty. I appeal to the natural feelings of every 
one who hears me, whether the salutary horror which 
it is the design of punishment to inspire, would not 
be wrought up to the highest pitch by a good man 
stepping before the criminal and baring his own 
bosom to the sword ? 

It is true that human tribunals refuse to accept 
such sacrifices. Why is this, it has been asked. If 
the idea of substitution be so congenial to the mind, 
why are not sufferings transferred from the guilty to 
the innocent, in the administration of justice among 
men ? This is a fair question, and demands a fair 



322 



SERMONS. 



and manly reply. We are bound to show that what- 
ever analogy exists between the government of God 
and of men in other respects, it here utterly fails ; 
in other words, that there are valid reasons why the 
civil magistrate never recurs to vicarious atonement, 
which reasons do not apply to the great transaction 
on Mount Calvary. As we believe that the denial of 
our doctrine owes all its plausibility to wrong views 
on this one point, we are anxious to set it before you 
in its true light. 

We say then, in the first place, that the civil magis- 
trate abstains from applying the vicarious principle, 
because the capital punishment of the innocent 
citizen in place of the guilty would be an act of 
personal injustice, which no regards of general ex- 
pediency would justify. Nor would the injustice be 
removed by his free consent. He has no right to con- 
sent. His happiness and life are a precious trust, 
which he dare not surrender except at the call of him 
who gave them. But this argument is utterly devoid 
of force when applied to the Great Mediator. That 
wonderful constitution of his person, by which he 
was distinguished from all the creatures of God, gives 
him the perfect disposal of his own life, the absolute 
power of laying it down whenever the sacrifice ap- 
peared necessary to the public good. Besides, the 
injury he received was not like that sustained by 
a mere human victim, desperate and irremediable. 
When the good man has once laid down his life for 
his friend, there is no return to the joys he has left. 
He will never again see the light of the sun, nor the 
happy faces of wife and children. His beneficence 



SERMONS. 



323 



has cost him his all, and justice will not tolerate the 
thought of so immense a calamity falling on the head 
of innocence, though innocence itself invite the blow. 
But the death of our Redeemer on the cross had a 
very different issue. The king of terrors could have 
no lasting dominion over the Lord of life : accord- 
ingly, after three days' slumber in the tomb, he rose 
in the majesty of his Godhead, and ascended to the 
Father's right hand, rejoicing in the happy issue of 
his glorious toils. His case is thus essentially dif- 
ferent from any which can be supposed in the ordi- 
nary course of human affairs. An example was set 
of awful retribution ; yet the blameless victim, instead 
of suffering ultimate loss, has, by a wonderful dis- 
position of events, become as really a gainer as the 
objects of his redeeming love. 

Another decisive objection to the admission of 
vicarious suffering by a human tribunal is, that in- 
stead of deterring from crimes it would, by its fre- 
quent repetition, encourage them, and thus contra- 
vene the very end of punishment. It is evident that 
the civil magistrate must govern his conduct by 
general rules. If he allows, in any instance, an in- 
nocent citizen to suffer for the guilty, he is forced to 
allow it in all, and thus the universal maxim would 
be established, that provided an evil-doer can obtain 
a substitute to bear the punishment of his sins, he is 
certain of impunity. It may be said that the princi- 
ple of self-love in men would sufficiently guard 
against the frequency of such occurrences as volun- 
tary suffering for the good of others. But they who 
say this are little acquainted with the strange 



324 



SERMONS. 



mechanism of the human mind. Do we not see. 
every day, men fronting death in its most appalling 
forms for the most trifling considerations ? What 
addition to his usual pittance of cents a day is de- 
manded by the soldier who consents to join the for- 
lorn hope, — the little company that must stand 
in the imminent deadly breach ? A handful of silver 
coin will, at any moment, produce a hundred such 
heroes. Nay, I dare affirm, that in the happiest com- 
munities there are many who, without exhibiting any 
peculiar tendency to play the desperado in their 
every-day deportment, would gladly yield up their 
lives, if they could do so, with signal advantage to 
their families, and credit to themselves. All the care 
of the rich villain then would be to keep himself 
rich. This secured, he may be entirely certain that 
the hour of trial will collect around him a host of 
willing substitutes. With these views pressing on 
his mind, the civil magistrate rightly withholds all 
sanction from a principle, the occasional application 
of which would otherwise be of admirable efficacy. 

But, now, will any pretend that the vicarious atone- 
ment of the Redeemer is liable to this objection ? Is 
it probable that the astonishing events of Calvary 
will ever be repeated ? Most surely not ! Here was 
displayed the infinite wisdom and unbounded fore- 
sight of our Father in heaven, that help was laid on 
one, not only mighty to save, but so single and unique 
in his character, that all hope of forgiveness being 
obtained in the same way, at a future period, is cut 
off forever. It was the eternal Son of God, his only 
begotten, the likeness of his glory, and the express 



SERMONS. 



325 



image of his person, who humbled himself and be- 
came obedient unto death, even the death upon the 
cross. I know, and will not pretend to conceal, the 
difficulties which beset this subject. I know that the 
Divinity cannot suffer and die ; that the man Jesus 
was alone the subject of those bitter agonies which 
were the price of our redemption. But it is impossi- 
ble to resist the belief that between the suffering, 
dying man who hung upon the cross, and the glori- 
ous Being we adore as the second person of the 
sacred Trinity, there existed the most close and inti- 
mate, though mysterious connection, — a union so 
complete as to justify our conception of them as one 
indivisible person. The obscurity of the idea is no 
argument against the fact. There are many connec- 
tions of objects in the visible world of whose nature 
we are wholly ignorant, though we cannot deny their 
existence; that, for example, between the soul and 
body. Perhaps, too, the mysteriousness of the union 
between our Saviour's Godhead and humanity is posi- 
tively advantageous, by arousing the imagination, and 
giving his sufferings a stronger hold on the intelli- 
gent beings for whose instruction they were designed. 
It is a strange error, into which some have fallen, 
that an idea cannot make a profound impression un- 
less it be perfectly clear and determinate. Rather 
the contrary is true. It is the unsearchable, the im- 
measurable^ the infinite which exercise a fascinating 
power. When an object presents itself to our con- 
templation too large for our embrace, — to which we 
can fix no limits, — enveloped in impenetrable ob- 
scurity, like boundless space, never ending dura- 

28 



326 



SERMONS. 



tion ; above all, the Almighty dwelling in thick clouds 
and with the majesty of darkness circling round his 
throne, — then a "fear cometh onus, a trembling 
maketh our bones to shake ; " awe and admiration ex- 
pel every lighter sentiment ; the soul is on the wing, 
burns to compass the vast unknown, and soars away 
like an eagle toward heaven, in the strong desire of 
reaching the heights of its noble argument. How 
much the idea of God himself owes its elevating 
character to this principle of our nature, you are 
all sensible. Perhaps, were we to comprehend him 
thoroughly, our conception, instead of gaining, would 
suffer a dreadful loss of grandeur and efficacy. Let 
us not, then, complain of an obscurity which is per- 
mitted to envelop the union of the divine and hu- 
man natures of our Eedeemer for the best designs. 
The fact is beyond controversy, and the vagueness of 
our apprehensions renders it more splendidly mag- 
nificent ; better adapted to be what it really is, the 
grand central truth of God's wide-extended universe. 
Seraphim and cherubim find in it an exhaustless 
theme of wonder and speculation. The impossibility 
of fathoming the depths of the surpassing mystery 
only raises their conceptions and rivets their attention 
on the great lessons which it teaches. 

Is it necessary, after all this, to ask whether an 
atonement by vicarious suffering will soon be re- 
peated ? Has God another Son beside his only 
begotten ? or will some angel be commissioned from 
the seventh heaven to stand between the rebel and 
his sentence ? Yain hope. The substitution of the 
Eternal Son would never have taken place if that 



SERMONS. 



327 



of an inferior could have been of any avail. Thus, 
the whole moral family of God has come to the 
fullest understanding that his last work for redeem- 
ing sinners has been accomplished ; and that 
whoever ventures on disobedience, must, hereafter, 
certainly pay the dreadful forfeit. Great goodness 
was shown in settling this point by a solemn, decisive 
spectacle, the import of which could not be mis- 
taken ; and who dare call it an idle conjecture, that 
for every sinner on earth, redeemed by the cross of 
Christ, there are myriads of stainless immortals who 
owe their continued loyalty and fidelity to its salutary 
warning ? The sentiment is clearly warranted by 
Revelation, which assures us that, by Christ, God 
was pleased, having made peace through the blood of 
the cross, to reconcile all things to himself, whether 
they be things on earth or things in heaven. It is 
not then surprising that John, in prophetic vision, 
saw the heavenly armies prostrate before Him that 
was slain, and joining in the hallelujahs of the re- 
deemed : " And I beheld, and heard the voice of 
many angels round the throne, and of every creature, 
in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, saying, 
with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain, to receive power, and wisdom, and honor, and 
glory, and blessing, forever and ever." 

It is time to close my remarks. What a view does 
this subject present of the nature of sin ; and what a 
reproof does it administer to those who would fain 
believe that the moral disorders of human nature 
are trifling infirmities, which ought not permanently 
to separate from God's paternal love ! The price 



82S 



SERMONS. 



paid for our redemption speaks a very different lan- 
guage. He who was in the form of God, and 
thought it no robbery to be equal with God, took 
upon him the form of a servant, and died an igno- 
minious, most excruciating, and accursed death. Do 
you feel a lamentable imperfection in your views on 
this subject ! Do you find, oftentimes, a disposition 
strong within you (as alas, who does not ?) to regard 
sin with other emotions than those of bitter and 
deadly hostility ? Eepair to your Saviour's cross. 
There you can take the full dimensions of the mon- 
ster, and in that dying cry, " My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me ? " learn how deep the abyss 
from which you have been delivered. 

Secondly. Let us admire the love of God displayed 
in our redemption. After the account we have given 
of the doctrine, we may well express surprise at the 
objection of its enemies, that it makes God an angry 
creditor, who must be bought off from prosecuting 
his demands, and who scarcely lays aside his wrath 
when he has received the uttermost farthing. The 
sentiment charged upon us we abhor, that the Father 
entertained to us feelings different from those of the 
benevolent Substitute. All contended for is this sim- 
ple and perfectly intelligible proposition, that to par- 
don, without having previously guarded against the 
dangerous consequences, would have been unbecom- 
ing the Euler of a thousand worlds. There were 
reasons, in short, why men should not be saved, and 
Jesus Christ has removed them. But these reasons 
lay in the nature of things ; not in the temper of 
Deity. We know that from eternity mercy was in 



SERMONS. 



329 



his heart ; and the very expedient, by which remission 
is harmonized with public justice, originated in his 
sovereign compassion : " God so loved the world, that 
he gave his only begotten Son." Away with the fear 
that the doctrine of redemption will obscure the 
glory of divine benevolence. That benevolence is 
its brightest, its most transcendent manifestation. 

Finally. Let Christians rejoice in their exalted priv- 
ileges, and feel the whole force of the motives they sup- 
ply to live, not unto themselves, but to Him " who 
loved us, and gave himself for us." What blessed- 
ness can compare with that into which you have been 
introduced by the grace and merit of your Redeemer ? 
Relieved from that load of guilt which was crushing 
you down to the lowest hell, — at peace with God and 
having access to him as a Father, — sanctified by the 
Divine Spirit whom Jesus sends into the hearts of 
his people, you already have a foretaste of those pure 
joys which await you above. " All things are yours." 
But remember, too, that you are Christ's. He hath 
redeemed you to himself to be glorified in you and 
by you. In your love and obedience he enjoys the 
proper reward of his work, — the reward that was 
directly in his view when he endured the cross and 
despised the shame. Will you refuse him this trib- 
ute ? You dare not, Christian. You dare not. 
Your soul revolts at the shocking inconsistency, and 
adopts the expressive language of the apostle : " I 
am crucified with Christ : nevertheless I live ; yet not 
I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now 
live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." 

Let this be the language of your practice as well 

28* 



330 



SERMONS. 



as of your lips. Endeavor to resemble your Master 
in all those holy beauties by which his character was 
distinguished. Abide in him, that when he shall ap- 
pear, ye may have confidence, and not be ashamed 
before him at his coming. 



The Fulness of Christ. 



THE FULNESS OF CHRIST. 



1 Col. 1 : 19. got it pleasri> l^re Jfa%r %i in feim s^oato all fa toss 



HAT we are all, naturally, in a helpless and 
indigent condition does not admit of denial : 
at least, the man who can doubt the truth of 
the proposition must be strangely infatuated. 
Even as creatures, we are entirely dependent on the 
charity of our Creator, possessing nothing which we 
can properly call our own, — mere tenants at will, lia- 
ble every moment to be ejected from what we hold 
by the most stable tenure. But, to have adequate 
ideas on this subject, we must take into view another 
fact, attested by the Bible and universal experience 
— our sinfulness. By apostasy we have been sep- 
arated from the living and exhaustless fountain of 
good. Like the prodigal, in the parable, we have 
left our Father's house and wandered into a far coun- 
try, inflated with chimerical notions of independence 
and self-sufficiency. Ours, too, has been the prodi- 
gal's reward! Reduced, in consequence of our de- 
parture, to a horrid famine, we are greedily feeding 
on base and empty husks, — the sordid, unsatisfying 
enjoyments of the present world. It is true, all do 
not feel the pinching want which, "like an armed 



334 



SEEM ONS. 



man," has come upon them. Like the same prodi- 
gal they have fallen into a strange stupor and de- 
lirium, which disqualifies them for appreciating the 
real truth of the case. It is said that in the last 
stage of famine the sufferer gradually falls asleep, 
and is entertained with pleasant dreams of costly 
viands, rich wines, and everything calculated to 
gratify his appetite. Such is the natural state of 
sinful men. They imagine they have enough and 
to spare. They talk of being rich ; boast that they 
are happy. But they dream; and if God, in his 
mercy, does not break the spell which fascinates 
them before they are arrested by the sleep of death, 
they shall have a dreadful awakening, when it will be 
too late to avert the consequences of their delusion. 

Accordingly, the first sentiment of a man truly re- 
newed by the grace of the gospel is invariably that 
of need, absolute, urgent need. No sooner has 
the unhappy prodigal come to himself than he de- 
tects the vile delusion he was under. Instead of re- 
joicing on a throne, he finds himself a shackled pris- 
oner in a dungeon. Instead of being in need of 
nothing, he discovers that he is in want of all things. 
There is a void, and a mighty one, in his immortal 
spirit, which must be filled up. Without restoration 
to the favor of God, without likeness to him, without 
a heart to love and serve him, without the prospect of 
dwelling forever in his presence, he feels he cannot 
be happy : he acknowledges that he could no more 
be satisfied with any other blessings than his fam- 
ished body could be nourished by a dream. 

To a person of such sentiments the words of my 



SERMONS. 



335 



text are unspeakably interesting and precious. They 
are not indeed calculated to make much impression 
on those who have never been awakened from the 
sleep of carnal security ; for of what consequence to 
the whole is it that they hear of a physician? For 
such, the text is neither intended nor suited : " Jesus 
Christ came to save that which was lost ; " "to call 
sinners, not the righteous, to repentance." If there 
be persons of this character before me, who feel 
their miserable poverty, who pant after something in 
the shape of happiness which the world can never 
give, and who, emptied of all self-confidence, exclaim, 
from the depths of their destitution, "Lord, help me, 
for I am poor and needy," we know the fact will re- 
joice their spirits that " it hath pleased the Father 
that in Christ should all fulness dwell." 

The words are at the close of a high eulogy by the 
apostle on the person and work of his ascended Mas- 
ter. He declares him to be " the image of the in- 
visible God ; the first-born of every creature, who 
was before all things, and by whom all things con- 
sist." He speaks of the high honor conferred on 
him, inasmuch as he is appointed head of the body, 
the church ; and is first-born from the dead, that in 
all things he might have the preeminence ; and he 
sums up the whole by declaring the Father's good 
pleasure, that " in him should all fulness dwell." 

I commence with observing that there is a per- 
sonal fulness of Divinity which essentially belongs 
to Christ as the Son of God. This is expressed by 
the apostle with remarkable emphasis in another part 
of his writings : " In him dwelleth all the fulness of 



336 



SERMONS. 



the Godhead bodily." There is no attribute of Deity 
but resides in him as the second person of the adora- 
ble Trinity. He is, in his own proper nature and 
essence, infinitely rich, possessing every divine per- 
fection in the highest possible degree. On examin- 
ing the sacred page we find them all, without excep- 
tion, frequently attributed to him ; for example, eter- 
nity : "He is the alpha and omega, the first and the 
last, the beginning and the end, who was, and is, and 
is to come." He is the omniscient One, who " needeth 
not that any should testify of man, for he knew what 
was in man." To his omnipotence, the august works 
of creation and providence sufficiently testify ; for 
by him were all things created that are in heaven 
and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or 
dominions, principalities or powers : " all things were 
created by him and for him." That omnipresence is 
his, is proved in his parting promise to his disciples : 
" Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of 
the world." Immutability is his, for he "is the same 
yesterday, to-day, and forever." This, however, is 
not the idea which the apostle intends to express 
in the text. His eternal Godhead he possessed ab- 
solutely , necessarily , and without donation; in refer- 
ence to which, therefore, the proposition could not 
be made, " It pleased the Father that in him 
should all fulness dwell." We must observe, at the 
same time, that this is the true and proper founda- 
tion of the other. Were not our Redeemer the 
mighty God, the everlasting Father, he never would 
have been capable of receiving that delegated fulness, 
which qualifies him to be our blessed king and head. 



SERMONS. 



337 



There is a fulness also which belongs to him as 
Mediator, consisting in his perfect fitness to execute 
the work on which he came into the world. In 
his person as God and man, united indissolubly 
and forever, there is a completeness of qualification 
to make perfect satisfaction to the divine law. Being 
man as well as God, he had a human body to offer 
in sacrifice ; for " he took not on him the nature of 
angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham." 
Being a perfectly holy man, he was fitted to be such 
a High Priest as became us, " holy, harmless, un de- 
filed, and separate from sinners.' ' Being God as 
well as man, his atonement possessed infinite dignity 
and virtue, and was accepted as a full compensation 
for the injuries sustained by moral order. Thus, 
in all respects, he was entirely competent to be a 
faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to 
make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 

But neither is this the principal thought which the 
apostle intends to express, though it is contained in 
his words and is a part of the general idea. The ful- 
ness which he mainly refers to is what has been 
called the distributive or communicative fulness of the 
Redeemer: that immense and inexhaustible treasure 
of saving blessing deposited with him by the Father, 
to be dispensed to the children of men. It is the 
high and magnificent prerogative he received when 
God exalted him to his right hand, of doing all 
things according to his pleasure in heaven and earth, 
in behalf of his body, the church. Accordingly, it is 
said, " The Father loveth the Son, and hath put all 
things into his hands." As a parent would delegate 

29 



338 



SEEM OX S. 



to a favorite or only child the entire management of 
a certain part of his possessions, resigning his own 
special agency with respect to that part, and appear- 
ing only through the other ashis agent and represent- 
ative ; so God has made over to Jesus, the Mediator, 
the great human family, that he may restore it to 
the happiness which had "been forfeited, reunite it to 
the kingdom of light from which it had been sep- 
arated, and be the repository of all the good to be 
enjoyed through time and through eternity. He 
is the great storehouse in which are hid all the 
treasures of knowledge, wisdom, and felicity, and 
from which the redeemed are continually receiving 
grace for grace. This is the interesting fact referred 
to principally in my text, and it includes the following 
particulars : — 

The absolute and unrestricted prerogative of gath- 
ering sinners into his redeemed family. 

A fulness of atoning merit for their justification 
and pardon. 

The possession of all the gifts and influences of 
the Divine Spirit for their renovation in the image of 
God. 

Light and power for their guidance and defence. 

Fulness of glory and blessedness, to be revealed 
when they shall have finished their earthly course. 

First. There is a fulness of ability in Christ to 
gather sinners into his redeemed family. This he re- 
ceived as an appropriate reward for his fulfilling the 
stupendous task of our redemption. We cannot sup- 
pose that the Son of God would stoop from his 
eternal throne, assume the form of a servant, and 



SERMONS. 



339 



become a suffering substitute for the guilty, without 
express provision that he should have power to apply 
in his own good time the benefits of his purchase 
to the unhappy rebel. The withholding such a right 
would have been unjust in the extreme ; for might 
he not do what he would with his own? Having 
poured out his blood from a generous regard to the 
good of others, he might well claim the privilege of 
conferring its healing virtue wherever and on whom- 
soever it seemed good to his benevolent heart. In 
accordance with this, it is asserted, " The Son quick- 
eneth whom he will ; for the Father hath committed 
all judgment to the Son." This was the joy set be- 
fore him, for which he endured the cross and despised 
the shame, — the prerogative of gathering whom he 
would from every nation and kindred, tongue and 
people. By virtue of it, he immediately on his 
resurrection commissioned his servants to go forth 
and announce salvation to the whole family of man. 
The whole design of his gospel is to reveal the great 
truth of his sufficiency to meet the wants of every 
sinner that hears it. In every page and paragraph 
we have with more or less directness a free, liberal, 
unqualified invitation to believe on his name. By 
the same divine prerogative which originally sent it 
forth, this gospel has been preserved from century to 
century, until at length in these ends of the earth 
it lifts up its cheering voice to the praise of the 
glorious fulness of Immanuel. 

But the right of offering salvation is a small part of 
the prerogative we speak of. He has also the right 
and ability to apply it, — to make a people willing in 



340 



SEEM ON S. 



the day of his poAver. There is, if I may use the 
expression, stored up with hiui an infinite fund of 
convincing and converting grace, which he employs in 
the actual gathering of sinners into his redeemed 
family, translating them from darkness to light, and 
from the power of Satan to the kingdom of God. 
One touch of his mighty sceptre softens the hardest 
heart, breaks the proudest spirit, and subdues to his 
obedience the most rebellious. However fast the 
prisoner may be bound with the cords of depravity, 
these cords are straw in the hands of our heavenly 
Samson. The highest mountains of opposition be- 
come a plain before this illustrious Zerubbabel, when 
he comes in the chariot of salvation, in the greatness 
of his power. Let him but pronounce the word, a 
whole valley of dry bones shall stand up a living and 
exceeding great army. Only secure his benediction 
on ordinances, not a heart shall be unpierced ; not an 
eye unfilled with contrition's tear ; not a tongue but 
will exclaim, " "What shall I do to be saved ? " 
Blessed Master ! only exercise thy divine prerogative, 
and come down with thy saving power in the midst 
of us : in the twinkling of an eye these sacred walls 
will contain a thousand gathered saints. 

This is the first specimen we give of the fulness 
that is in our Redeemer. I trust there are some 
of us who need no instruction on the subject but 
that which they have gained from happy personal ex- 
perience. Let such celebrate with gladness his glori- 
ous gathering grace. Let Christ have the entire 
honor of that wonderful change which has been 
wrought, as you humbly trust, in your condition and 



SERMONS. 



341 



prospects. He did the work, if it ever has been done. 
His words are spirit, and they are life. 

Secondly. There is in him a fulness of righteous- 
ness for justification and pardon. The meritorious 
obedience and satisfaction, rendered by him to the 
divine law, he keeps in his hands as a sacred fund, 
the whole of which he bestows on every needy ap- 
plicant : such being its admirable virtue and power of 
multiplication, that each possesses it undivided with- 
out in the least degree affecting its availableness 
to others. This righteousness, as to its value, is 
infinite, being the righteousness of a God. It is capa- 
ble of being imputed, for it is the righteousness of a 
man. It meets all the exigencies of the case : on the 
one hand, disarming the curse by the sufferings of its 
Divine Author on the cross ; on the other, honoring 
the precept by such a wonderful course of obedience 
without a stain, that infidelity itself is struck dumb 
at the contemplation of a picture so infinitely tran- 
scending all the ideas it had previously formed of a 
perfect man. The personal character of Jesus was a 
magnificent orb of light and moral glory, which 
one dark speck never crossed or blurred, even his 
enemies being judges ; and was crowned with a death 
so astonishing, in all its attendant circumstances, that 
not only the throes of inanimate nature, but the 
voice of humanity itself, speaking by the lips of the 
Roman centurion, bore testimony to his being the 
Son of God. Such a phenomenon in the world's 
history could not but have been designed to exert a 
mighty influence on the fates and fortunes of the human 
race. God does nothing in vain ; and from the great- 

29* 



342 



SERMOtfS. 



ness of the effect he produces in a given instance, we 
may solidly reason to the grandeur of the design. It 
could not have been for a trifling purpose that so 
wonderful a Being appeared in the midst of us ; one 
who towered so high above his fellows ; so evidently 
allied to the divine, if not (what we know to be the 
fact) an impersonation of Divinity itself, that we 
scarcely dare to claim with him community of nature. 
Look at him as delineated in the narratives of his 
disciples, and say whether I exaggerate when I affirm 
that his existence in our dark and degraded world 
is a miracle equal to that which first ushered the 
universe into being. I repeat my assertion. The ap- 
pearance of Jesus Christ could not be for a trifling 
purpose. The all-wise Disposer of events must 
have intended to accomplish by it a result that 
would be felt through the revolving ages of eternity. 
What this result is, we are not left, blessed be God ! 
dimly to conjecture. His glorious career merited 
immortal privileges and honors for the race whose 
nature he assumed : that is it. Hereby a foundation 
was laid for the blotting-out of sin, and a reestablish- 
rnent of happy relations with the offended Sovereign 
of heaven. With it the great Conservator of moral 
order has declared himself well pleased, and given 
the assurance that all who appear in this seamless 
robe shall be accepted in his sight. Hence it is de- 
clared, " He fulfilled all righteousness ; " and the 
heart of every sincere believer echoes, in glad recog- 
nition of its truth, " He is the Lord my righteous- 
ness." We do not surely mean to be understood as 
saying, that there is any actual infusion of Christ's 



SERMONS. 



343 



personal holiness into the sonls of believers, so that 
it becomes theirs in the same sense in which their own 
physical and moral qualities are theirs, — a view of 
the subject too childish to be seriously entertained, 
and existing only in the fancy of those who oppose 
our doctrine ; many of them not scrupling to throw 
odium upon it by the grossest misrepresentation. 
What Ave affirm is, the simple and perfectly intelligi- 
ble truth, that such a moral transfer takes place 
of what he did and suffered as the great covenant- 
head of humanity, to the account of the sinner, as 
acquits him from the sentence of condemnation and 
gives him a title to heavenly blessing. This right- 
eousness is offered to all of Adam's family, and is 
abundantly sufficient for all. Being of infinite merit, 
it is exhibited in the gospel as a common benefit, 
which received by faith never fails in securing all 
things connected with salvation. That all do not ex- 
perience its saving efficacy is a melancholy truth ; 
but our Redeemer has himself given the equally 
melancholy reason : " They will not come unto me 
that they may have life." 

From this imputed righteousness proceeds the for- 
giveness of sin ; for " we have redemption through his 
blood, even the forgiveness of sins." An act of par- 
don issues from the courts of heaven, the tenor of 
which is, " I will be merciful to their iniquities and 
their sins will I remember no more." To the same 
purpose are various other expressions of sacred 
Scripture. Our sins are said to be blotted out, 
washed away, thrown into the sea, — all of which ex- 
press in the most forcible manner the complete and 



2>U 



SEEM OXS. 



everlasting cancel of guilt through the atoning merit 
of the Saviour. What an illustrious dispenser of bless- 
ing, then, is he in whom we trust ! Does he not de- 
serve all the encomiums passed upon him by prophets, 
apostles, and saints in every age ? How adorable that 
grace which wipes away the stains of our sin as if 
they had never been ; that mercy which speaks to us, 
rebels as we are, in this tender strain : " Though your 
sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." 

But we have not exhausted the topic. There is 
more than pardon. There is the privilege of adop- 
tion, by which the enfranchised slave is introduced 
into the family of God, and recognized as no more 
a servant but a son: — the poor wretch ! This also 
is the gift of Christ ; the bestowment of it is ex- 
pressly asserted to be part of the divine prerogative 
given by the Father: " As many as received him, 
to them gave he power to become the sons of God, 
even to them that believe on his name." And 
again, it is said : " To redeem them that were under 
the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." 

Thirdly. There is a fulness of grace and vital in- 
fluence for renovating the soul in the divine image; 
which had been lost by the apostasy. In other 
words, the sanctification of his people is a most 
interesting branch of his mediatorial prerogative. 
Were there no hindrance to communion with God 
from the guilt of our sins, — were our obnoxious- 
ness to punishment on account of them entirely 
removed, yet one insurmountable obstuction would 
still remain: we are morally polluted ; and Heaven's 
proclamation has gone forth : " Without holiness no 



SERMONS. 



345 



man shall see the Lord." Jesus Christ, on that 
memorable hour when he received gifts for men, did 
not neglect to provide for this emergency. He ob- 
tained from the Father the right, not only to make a 
people willing in the day of his power, but willing in 
the beauty of holiness. Having become their right- 
eousness, they next experience him to be their sanc- 
tificatioji. The Christ without now begins to manifest 
himself as the Christ within. In a word, he received 
the Holy Spirit, by whose agency he presents the 
church to himself, " without spot or wrinkle or any 
such thing," making it " a holy generation, a royal 
priesthood, a peculiar people." 

This great work he commences on the day of 
conversion ; breathing into the soul a divine and spir- 
itual vitality, which evinces its presence by corre- 
sponding divine and spiritual actings in accordance 
with his promise : " Because I live ye shall live also." 
As the precious ointment, on the head of Aaron, is 
said to have run down to the skirts of his garments, 
so the oil of gladness, with which our great High 
Priest was anointed above his fellows, passes over 
him in rich abundance and quickening efficacy from 
the head to all the members of the mystical body. 
He takes away the stony heart, and gives a heart of 
flesh. He writes in the inner man a new law, — the 
law of the spirit of life, — which makes free from the 
law of sin and death. Love to God and the rule of 
rectitude is now the controlling principle of conduct. 
Under the influence of this new and delightful senti- 
ment, the subject of it exclaims : " Oh, how love I thy 
law ! I delight in it after the inner man." More- 



346 



SERMONS, 



over, his heart, purged of selfishness, is tenderly 
affected to all mankind. He rejoices with them that 
rejoice ; he weeps with those that weep, and seeks 
the best, even the eternal interests of both. 

Again ; as Christ is the author, so he is the finisher 
of our faith, carrying on the good work he has com- 
menced till the day of redemption. Those spiritual 
influences which first induced the sinner to turn from 
his evil ways and live unto God, he continues with 
him, sometimes more abundantly, at other less, but 
never entirely withdrawing them during his journey 
heavenward. Arc they able to persevere in a good 
profession through many difficulties ? " By him they 
are kept through faith unto salvation." Do they some- 
times wander ? He, the good Shepherd, brings them 
back to the fold. Are they pressed down by a 
body of sin and death ? Victory is given them 
through the Lord Jesus Christ. Are they buffeted 
by temptations from without ? " His strength is 
made perfect in weakness." Nay, they are enabled 
to make constant advances in the divine life. For- 
getting the things that are behind, they press forward 
to the things that are before. Their past failings 
they subdue, correct the mistakes into which igno- 
rance or precipitance may have plunged them, and 
from past experience derive lessons for the future. 
In fine, all things necessary to establish, strengthen, 
and make them perfect in every good word and work, 
are communicated to them from the plenitude of the 
Redeemer's grace. 

Nothing but this can raise the soul from its pollu- 
tion and restore the lineaments of heaven. We may 



SERMONS. 



347 



labor for these blessings with untiring effort ; but, 
without union to the living vine, assuredly our labor 
shall be in vain. It cannot be otherwise. There is 
no promise of assistance, no sanctifying Spirit apart 
from the Redeemer. There is no kind hand to hold 
us up in the contest with corruption, to raise us 
when fallen, and pour oil into our wounds. We are 
under a stern, inexorable law, that knows only to 
command. " Do this, and thou shalt live," are the 
kindest words it is ever heard to utter ; and with 
these must be coupled its other announcement : 
" Cursed is every one that continues not in all things 
written in the book of the law to do them.' , There 
is awful meaning in this, but no living power to re- 
new the soul. It may harass and frighten me, and 
compel me to engage in the external drudgery of 
religion, but can never inspire holy love, without 
which obedience is a solemn mockery. 

Fourthly. In Christ is light and truth for the guid- 
ance of his people. Among the dismal effects of our 
apostasy, not the least is the almost brutal ignorance 
in which our race is plunged on subjects of the 
deepest and most commanding interest. There is, 
indeed, a species of knowledge in which great ad- 
vances have been made, and to which we would 
award due praise. In reference to our earthly con- 
dition and the improvement of the conveniences of 
living, its value is great. Yet, what a poor, abject, 
worthless thing is secular science, carried to the high- 
est point of cultivation, when brought to bear on our 
higher nature as moral agents, and our eternal desti- 
nation ! What instruction does it communicate con- 



348 



SERMONS. 



cerning the great Being who made us ? What, con- 
cerning the method of securing his favor ? What, 
concerning the proper end of our existence ? What, 
concerning our future immortality ? On all these 
subjects it makes no pretensions to be our guide. It 
cannot even save us -from the abyss of atheism, as 
too many facts painfully demonstrate. Yes ! human 
science can look up into the heavens, and expound 
the movements of those shining orbs that roll their 
ceaseless round through the void immense. But its 
dim eye sees little more than matter in 'perpetual 
agitation, — an eternal whirl of senseless atoms 
jostling each other as they blindly rush through fields 
of ether, and assuming new forms, as chance or fate 
determine ; while the intelligent Author of all the 
order and beauty they exhibit is so faintly recognized 
that it has been known to doubt his personal existence, 
and resolve the proofs of his ever-present energy into 
a blind, mechanical necessity. Let one example suf- 
fice : "I DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE HYPOTHESIS OF A 

Deity," deliberately asserts the most commanding 
intellect of ancient or modern times ; the man who, 
carrying out the conceptions of Newton, has given a 
complete system of the physical universe, pushing 
demonstration to such a dizzy height that the pro- 
foundest mathematician pants in the mere attempt to 
follow him in his magnificent course. " I do not be- 
lieve in the hypothesis of a Deity," says the illus- 
trious La Place, in the preface to his immortal work. 
Yes ; after erecting the proudest monument of the 
strength of human intellect ever exhibited to the 
eyes of men, — after exerting a power of genius 



SERMONS. 



349 



almost divine in explaining the wonderful mechanism 
of nature, — this demigod of science calmly sits 
down and acknowledges (0 most lame and impotent 
conclusion !) that " he does not believe in the hy- 
pothesis of a Deity.' ' Incredible and horrible as this 
may seem, it is the fact ; and I cite it as a specimen 
of the thick darkness that broods over the natural 
mind till enlightened by grace, and which all the 
lights of science, so far from dissipating, seem only 
to render, in many cases at least, tenfold more ter- 
rific. 

But, blessed be God ! we are not left to the blank 
despair that would overspread the soul had we no 
other clue through the mazes of our condition than 
the teachings of human science. There is a sun 
in the moral firmament, and Jesus Christ is that sun. 
" I am the light of the world," he declares ; "he that 
followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall 
have the light of life." Being constituted by God 
his visible representative and the interpreter of his 
will, treasures of true wisdom, of sublime and ex- 
alted knowledge, are hid in him. Perfectly ac- 
quainted with all the thoughts and purposes of the 
Father (for he lay from eternity in his bosom, and 
was fitted therefore to reveal all that was in his 
heart), he has communicated out of the fulness of 
his knowledge as much as mankind need to the 
possession of true happiness in the present world, and 
everlasting felicity in the next, which he has em- 
bodied in that most blessed of all books, the Bible : 
for the spirit which moved holy men of old, they re- 
ceived from him, the Great Prophet, — " the Angel of 

30 



850 



SERMONS. 



the Covenant," who is set forth to be a " light to the 
Gentiles, a salvation to the ends of the earth." He 
alone has confirmed and sealed the fundamental 
doctrine of one God and Parent of all, — Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost : for " No man hath seen God at any 
time ; the only begotten of the Father, he hath 
declared him." He alone has informed us of the 
true origin of the world, delineated the happy con- 
dition of primeval man, and accounted for the en- 
trance of sin into this fair universe. He alone has 
unfolded the depravity of the human heart in all its 
terrible depth ; awakened the world from its deceit- 
ful dreams, and told of high Heaven's controversy 
with it. He alone has announced a remedy, and 
brought life and immortality to light. But he does 
more than this. He not only teaches, but applies his 
instructions, making them effectual, and impressive, 
so that they penetrate the soul, shedding over it a 
warming, captivating influence which it cannot re- 
sist, and yet to which it sweetly and spontaneously 
yields. The darkened understanding becomes light 
in the Lord, the deaf are compelled to hear, and the 
blind cannot choose but see clearly. Though he does 
not always make his people wise in the sense attached 
to wisdom by the world, he makes them wise in God's 
meaning of it, — wise unto salvation ; for " Unto them 
it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of 
heaven." He teaches them the evil of sin, the 
beauty of holiness. He so instructs them in princi- 
ples of duty, in the divine art of happy living, 
that they are enabled to avoid every snare, extricate 
themselves from every embarrassment that threatens 



SEEMONS. 



351 



their comfort, and walk in a perpetual sunshine. 
Often does the Christian, perplexed as to the course 
which in a given instance he should pursue, hear his 
guiding voice behind him, saying, " This is the way, 
walk thou in it," with such distinctness and evidence 
of reality that he can scarce resist the impression that 
it falls on his bodily ear. 

Sitting at the feet of such an Instructor, he can 
afford to be ignorant of many things, the knowledge 
of which is coveted by not a few as the perfection of 
wisdom. He may be a babe in the modern astron- 
omy, yet he walks among the stars for all that. When 
he looks up to the magnificent canopy above his 
head, he can answer questions which the far-reaching 
intellect of a La Place could not. " Who created 
all these ; who brought out their host by number ; 
who calleth them all by names, by the greatness 
of his might, not one faileth." He may have never 
heard of the existence of Saturn's ring, nor calculated 
the motions of a comet, nor conjectured the distance 
of the nearest fixed star, nor philosophized on tele- 
scopic nebulae ; but he has a science that laughs to 
scorn such pitiful speculations ; that soars beyond 
planets, suns, and systems piled on systems, turning 
its back on the most distant orb that twinkles on the 
verge of created being, nor drops its wing till, arrived 
at the eternal throne, it nestles in the uncreated efful- 
gence of the Godhead. He may have no acquaint- 
ance with mineralogy, or fossils, — possibly may stare 
on being told that one stone of our muddy planet 
differs from another. But this cannot seriously dis- 
compose the man to whom Christ has given the " new 



352 



SEEMONS 



stone, and on the stone a new name written, which 
no man knoweth,save he that receiveth it." He may 
be no chemist, but he is a profound alchemist; for he 
has the art of transmuting everything he touches into 
gold. He may show very little scholarship in talking 
of the furniture of the house ; but he is the bosom- 
friend and intimate of the Master, which argues a 
higher wisdom, as well as nobler dignity. He may 
boast of few books, and his library be as scanty as his 
wardrobe ; but one volume he possesses from whose 
constant study he derives a lore, compared with 
which, the whole cyclopedia of science is a vast conti- 
nent of impertinency, worthless as the dirt beneath his 
feet. We admire the stupendous folios to which the 
erudition of a single man has given birth. But there 
is more learning, truth, eloquence, and lofty intellect 
in the short broken prayer of a poor old woman, who, 
though unable to write her name, keeps herself in 
daily communion with her Saviour, than in all the 
mountains of blotted paper that load the shelves of 
the Bodleian library. " What are you repeating 
so often ? " inquired a literary gentleman of his 
ignorant, but pious servant-maid, who was continu- 
ally reciting her prayers while engaged in her domes- 
tic avocations. " The Lord's prayer," she replied. 
" But the Lord's prayer is very short," he rejoined ; 
" you can soon finish that." " Yes, sir," was her 
answer ; " but I always begin again ! master, 
what ideas of the power, wisdom and goodness of my 
God are shut up in those four single words, — our 
Father, who art in heaven." What think you of this 
poor girl ? Was she not a fine scholar ? Was she not 



SERMONS. 



353 



qualified to open an academy which many a gowned 
professor might have attended with infinite advan- 
tage ? But so it is and ever will be. " I thank thee, 
Father, Lord of heaven and earth," exclaims our 
Redeemer, " because thou hast hid these things from 
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
babes." 

Fifthly. There are in Christ inexhaustible re- 
sources for preserving and defending the objects 
of his saving grace. This necessarily follows from 
his solemn inauguration to the office of king of Zion. 
For being anointed Prince of Peace and head over 
all things to the church, he must possess the amplest 
qualifications for the high duties of his function ; one 
and not the least of which is the protection of his 
subjects. Otherwise he would be no king. He would 
be one of those poor phantoms of royalty, who bear 
the name and hold the diadem, while on account 
of their real insignificance they are objects of general 
pity and contempt. But Christ is truly and in the 
fullest sense a monarch, having all power given him in 
heaven and in earth. Though his bodily presence is 
withdrawn from us, his eye runs to and fro through 
creation ; his right arm circles the universe, and 
every subject of his gracious rule is kept in the 
hollow of his hand. He has an army, too ! At his 
side stands a countless host of burning angels, listen- 
ing to the voice of his word, ready at his nod to wing 
their rapid flight for the protection of his people and 
the discomfiture of aliens. So exact and minute 
is the superintendence which he exercises, that not a 
hair of our head falls to the ground without a permis- 

30* 



354 



S ERM N S. 



sive edict: such its extent, that the follower of the 
cross, banished to the remotest desert or shivering 
arnid Arctic snows, is as safe as if he were already 
singing the new song before the throne ; such its 
perpetuity, that not one has been lost. 

How illustriously did he display this power in 
the defence of his infant church ! Launched a feeble 
bark, with the most helpless and timid of crews, 
on a stormy sea, it gallantly made its way through 
the rocks and billows that every moment threatened 
its destruction ; proving by its miraculous preserva- 
tion that an omnipotent pilot was at the helm, whom 
even the winds and waves obeyed ; who, if he some- 
times seemed to sleep, always awoke in the hour of 
greatest peril, and commanded them, u Peace ; be 
still." It has now expanded into a large and stately 
ark, filled with ten thousand times ten thousand 
happy spirits plucked from the raging waters, and is 
gently sailing down the river of life, receiving from 
day to day new myriads of redeemed from every 
nation and kindred and tongue and people. All the 
agitations of states and empires have been made sub- 
servient to its interests. Dynasties have risen and 
fallen, like the leaves of autumn ; nations have 
passed on and off the scene of action ; the church, 
the frail, apparently helpless church, like the bush in 
Horeb burning but not consumed, has survived them 
all, and continues to subsist with increasing glory, a 
monument of the faithfulness and efficiency of its 
Divine Protector. We have reason to believe, how- 
ever, that the greatest exhibition of these attributes 
is yet to come. A period is approaching, when his 



SEEM ONS. 



355 



sceptre shall not be limited by the paltry boundaries 
which at present confine it to a small portion of the 
habitable globe ; but extend from sea to sea, and 
from the river to the ends of the earth. Enemies 
shall be prostrated ; kings who will refuse to be nurs- 
ing fathers, and queens nursing mothers to the 
church, shall be hurled from their seats of greatness, 
and all the nations of the earth shall coalesce in one 
kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy 
Ghost. That the course of events in the world does 
not immediately promise such an issue, — that numer- 
ous and in the view of reason unenlightened by faith 
appalling difficulties are in the way, — we concede 
freely. " But who art thou, great mountain ? 
Before the conquering Immanuel thou shalt become 
a plain ; and he will bring forth the headstone with 
shoutings, crying Grace, grace unto it ! " " Not by 
might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord 
of hosts." 

Here is the true foundation on which rest all our 
hopes of an amelioration of the condition of our 
race. You read and hear much in our day of the 
astonishing improvements of the age, the march of 
science and the arts, the decay of ancient prejudices, 
the progress of free institutions, the dissemination of 
intelligence among all classes of society. Progress ! 
You are reminded of the wonderful achievements of 
the press, the steam-engine, the spinning-jenny. You 
are told that the schoolmaster is abroad. In short, 
we are invited to believe that we are on the eve of a 
great philosophical millennium, which will more than 
realize the fondest dreams of the poet and the sage 



356 



SEEMONS. 



concerning the perfectibility of man ! Dreams I have 
called them. Dreams they truly are and will con- 
tinue to be till our great globe shall cease to roll. 
They overlook a solemn and momentous fact, never 
to be lost sight of in speculations concerning the per- 
fectibility of man, because it solves the problem, at 
once and forever, in the negative, — the innate and 
radical depravity of the human soul, which no ex- 
ternal agency can reach, and which, we have reason 
to fear, will only assume more portentous forms of 
mischief as the intellect is developed. Will any 
man soberly assert that the onward movement of our 
utilitarian age is to a higher spiritual life, to a purer 
morality, to a more ardent love of truth, to more 
earnest aspirations after the good, the beautiful, the 
divine ? Standing, as we ' are, in the midst of the 
agitated and heaving mass, it would, perhaps, be un- 
wise to predict, with confidence, the issue. But one 
thing is certain, that there is little promise of a re- 
sult that will satisfy the philanthropist. The pros- 
pect may be, that a new cycle in the affairs of men is 
approaching ; but we sadly mistake the omens that 
meet us on every side, if it be not a cycle of gigantic 
wickedness, purged, indeed, of the grossness of by- 
gone ages, — smooth, plausible, brilliant as the hue 
of the serpent, — disguising its turpitude by refine- 
ments unknown to our simple forefathers, but sur- 
passing all former iniquity in its utter destitution of 
principle and its corrupting tendencies. 

There is but one hope for us, and that is the hope 
of the blessed Gospel. We are a race redeemed by 
Christ. The seal of a high predestination is upon 



SERMONS. 



357 



us, and the Mighty One entrusted with its execution 
is already seated at the Father's right hand. " I 
saw," says the inspired seer, wrapt in mystic vision, 
" one like the Son of Man coming in the clouds of 
heaven; and there was given him dominion, and 
glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and 
languages should serve him. His dominion is an ever- 
lasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his 
kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." That 
is it ! Meanwhile, and till the period of fulfilment, 
he permits his future domain to be the subject of an 
endless variety of experiments, whose shameful and 
disastrous issue will enhance the splendor of his final 
triumph. He bides his time, and when the appointed 
moment arrives, woe to the worm that stands up to 
oppose his progress ! 

Lastly ; there is in Christ a communicative fulness 
of glory and happiness, which he bestows on his re- 
deemed when the conflicts and trials of the present 
life are ended. As all power is given him in heaven 
as well as earth, we cannot doubt that those whom 
he loved here below he will introduce into the man- 
sions of the upper house. This is delightfully ex- 
pressed in the assurance given by him to John in the 
first Apocalyptic vision : " Fear not ; I am the first 
and the last ; I am he that liveth and was dead and 
am alive for evermore, and have the keys of hell and 
of death." Our translation has unhappily rendered the 
passage in a way that greatly detracts from its force 
and beauty. When we hear the Redeemer assert- 
ing that he has the keys of hell and death, we can 
scarce avoid supposing him to have the custody only 



358 



SERMONS. 



of the place of torment, — the right and power of 
executing on the impenitent the sentence of eternal 
justice. But this is not the meaning of the expres- 
sion. It cannot be ; for where would be the sweet 
comfort of the statement, or the appropriateness and 
point of the argument ? There seems little propriety 
in encouraging the apostle " not to fear," when all 
the reason assigned is, that Christ is the jailer of 
devils, — the dread janitor of the bottomless pit. 
The word translated " hell," should not have been so 
translated. It denotes the invisible world in general, 
— the whole condition of departed spirits, — the 
place of eternal happiness as well as that of eternal 
misery and despair. Of both these great compart- 
ments, he hath the keys ; in other words, the entire 
disposal ; and the passage has special reference to 
the former. The portals of the celestial kingdom 
are committed to him, which he opens and no man can 
shut, — shuts and no man can open. In connection 
with this, another key is given him, the hey of death. 
The time and all the circumstances of this solemn 
event are put into his hands, and arranged by him 
with the Litmost accuracy. He stands at the sick-bed 
of the dying saint, sustains his sinking courage in 
the terrible conflict ; at the proper moment gives the 
signal of dismission, when a band of angels trans- 
port him to the heavenly city which, by virtue of the 
same divine prerogative, opens its golden gates, 
through which the enraptured spirit enters ; all heaven 
ringing with welcome and joyful acclamation. Ac- 
cordingly, we hear the Redeemer, in his last inter- 
cessory prayer, addressing his Father on this subject 



SERMONS. 



359 



with all the confidence of one who knew that he was 
possessed of this wonderful dominion. " Father, I 
will" Mark the emphasis, I was about to say the 
tone of high command, with which he urges his peti- 
tion. He uses not the language of entreaty, nor be- 
trays the least consciousness that by any possibility the 
prayer might be denied. It is the Lord of the quick 
and dead who speaks, reminding the Father of his cov- 
enant rights. It is the great Mediator with the keys 
of the invisible world at his girdle: "Father, I will, 
that they whom thou hast given me, be with me 
where I am, that they may behold my glory." 

Such is a brief sketch of the fulness that dwells in 
the Lord Jesus Christ. Allow me to conclude with 
some remarks by way of improvement. 

We here see the important place in the Christian 
system that is occupied by the Redeemer. Is it so, 
that he, in his mediatorial character, is the reposi- 
tory of all blessings for the children of men ? Has 
it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness 
dwell? Then, the church will never gain by a 
Christless Christianity, and all endeavors to impress 
on it such a character will be as prejudicial to im- 
mortal souls, as it is insulting to the divine Author of 
this constitution. He is the life; the animating, con- 
trolling, central principle of Bible theology; and what 
the body is without the soul, that religion is without 
him as the Alpha and Omega. He is the only me- 
dium through which we can see God and live. By 
his blood we are purchased, by his Spirit regenerated, 
by his grace sanctified, preserved, glorified. 

No wonder, then, that the Holy Scriptures dwell 



360 



SERMONS. 



on Christ. No wonder that, when he is the theme, 
the harp of the sweet singer of Israel sends forth its 
most ravishing notes, and his tongue becomes as the 
pen of a ready writer. No wonder that we hear 
such language as this from the lips of Paul : " For 
me to live is Christ ; yea, doubtless, I count all things 
but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ 
Jesus my Lord." Nothing, indeed, strikes so forci- 
bly, in the writings of this great apostle, as the deep, 
heartfelt delight with which he expatiates on the 
glory, the beauty, the loveliness, and preciousness of 
his Saviour's character. Truly has it been said, 
" Christ is the gospel's sum, substance, end, and all. 
Without Christ, the gospel has no meaning. Of all 
riddles, it is the most perplexing ; of all impositions, 
it is the most deceptive. It is a cloud without water, 
a shadow without substance, a body ivithout a soul! " 

Unhappily, there are not a few who, without for- 
mally disavowing their belief in Christianity, seem to 
have no love or esteem for this, its fundamental 
truth. They do not understand, they say, why God 
should convey his blessings to us through the me- 
dium of another. They prefer dealing with the 
great Parent himself, — expecting everything from 
his benignity, — and will not dishonor him by sup- 
posing that he needs an almoner to distribute his 
fatherly bounty, or an intercessor to disarm him of 
his wrath. Bold and wicked language, betraying the 
grossest ignorance of the ways of God and their own 
character ! Is it not a fact that, in communicating 
his blessings, he has always employed intermediate 
agency ? What comfort or privilege do we enjoy 



SERMONS. 



361 



that we did not receive from some one to whom the 
trust is delegated of bestowing it ? Our parents, are 
they not almoners, appointed to nurse, feed, clothe, 
defend, and educate us, — by whose tender cares we 
are fitted to act our part in life, and perform similar 
duties to those who come after us ? Are we not in- 
debted, every hour and moment of our lives, to the 
good offices of others ? Could we live without our 
fellow-beings ? What would become of us in a sin- 
gle day, if, under the absurd pretext of receiving 
favors directly from the hand of God, we rejected 
their assistance. Poverty, disease, and wretchedness 
in every form, would soon bring down our haughty 
spirits, and make us thankfully betake to the earthly 
fountains in which Heaven has deposited its mercy. 
In precisely the same way has God always adminis- 
tered the concerns of his redeemed church. When 
he delivered Israel from Egypt, and organized it into 
a nation, it was by his servant Moses, whom the peo- 
ple were commanded to hear on pain of exclusion 
from covenant blessings. When he healed the bites 
of the poisonous animals that wrought destruction 
through their camp, it was by means of a brazen ser- 
pent, erected on a pole before the eyes of the whole 
congregation. When he rescued his people from in- 
vading enemies, it was by judges and illustrious war- 
riors, whom he raised up for the purpose, whose 
hearts he rilled with invincible courage, and whose 
efforts he crowned with victory. And shall we ques- 
tion God's right to establish a similar arrangement, 
so harmonizing with all his other dealings in relation 
to our immortal interests ? Shall we refuse to honor 

31 



362 



SERMONS. 



his own Eternal Son in whom air the Father shines ; 
united to us, as he is, by the possession of the same 
human nature, and having all the tender sympathies 
of an elder brother ? I say, shall we dare to pour 
contempt on this magnificent ordinance of salvation 
because it is our particular desire that no medium 
interpose between us and the uncreated Godhead ? 

Alas ! you know not what you ask, nor what spirit 
you are of. You cannot see the great and terrible 
God ill his absolute majesty, and live. 

Equally impossible is it to yield obedience to the 
divine will without such an intervention. Men have 
attempted it. They have sought, by refined specula- 
tion on the beauty of virtue and the deformity of 
vice, assisted by motives based on the ideas of everlast- 
ing punishment and reward, to acquire that state of 
moral affection which is pleasing in the sight of God. 
But they have never succeeded. Their loftiest flights 
have always terminated in utter discomfiture. The 
more they attempted to dam up the mighty fountain 
of corruption, the higher it rose and the more dread- 
ful was the inundation that followed. Man is dead 
in sin! Deserted by the spirit of life, given up 
to his own sordid and earthly impulses, he may, by a 
spasmodic and desperate effort, succeed in perform- 
ing a few external acts which shall possess a certain 
appearance of moral worth. But they are apples of 
Sodom and grapes of Gomorrah ; fair and promising to 
the eye, while worms and rottenness are at the core. 
Nothing but the transforming energy of the grace 
of Christ can make free from the law of sin and 
death. It is the cross alone, that can crucify the 



SERMONS. 



363 



world, and by which the world is crucified to us. 
From the sacred Victim, whom it exhibits to the eye 
of faith, flows a stream, not only of blood, but pure 
living water, that washes all our stains away, and 
fits for angelic joys. Look at the experience of the 
holy and blessed Paul. Who exceeded him in ear- 
nest endeavors to obtain a righteousness which should 
approve itself to an enlightened conscience while 
stranger to the faith of the gospel. He struggled with 
sin as with a demon, — fasted, prayed, attended, with 
painful scrupulosity, to every Levitical observance, 
— neglected no expedient that promised a successful 
issue. In the days of his youthful thoughtlessness, 
he flattered himself that his labor was not entirely in 
vain. But when the commandment came, when the 
holy law began to speak in thunder, and its lightnings 
flashed on his awakened religious sensibility, he found 
that he had been the victim of a terrible delusion. 
To use his own expressive language, " Sin revived 
and I died." The description he gives of this un- 
happy contest, in the seventh chapter of the Romans, is 
one of the most graphic and thrilling narratives ever 
penned. " wretched man ! " he exclaims, at the 
close, " who shall deliver me from this body of sin 
and death ? " He seems utterly exhausted. His 
breast heaves with unutterable agony, and he is on 
the point of breathing his last sigh, when, behold the 
sign in the heavens — his Saviour's cross! Instantly, 
the darkness breaks away, he feels the sweet and 
serene breathings of the Holy Ghost, infusing new 
life in every faculty, — penetrating, warming, exalting 
him, — letting heaven itself into his soul, and he 



364 



SERMONS. 



cries out with a burst of triumph, wondering at the 
change he has experienced, " I thank God, through 
Jesus Christ my Lord." 

Try the expedient of this glorified spirit. Try it, 
thou conscience-burdened sinner, trembling at the 
thought of appearing before a just God, and anx- 
iously casting about for a righteousness to cover thee 
in his presence. Try it, thou anxious spirit, who, 
feeling the necessity of a far higher reach of holi- 
ness than any hitherto attained, art seeking for it as 
for hid treasure ; though, alas, condemned to perpetual 
disappointment. Soon the clouds shall disappear, 
and thou shalt settle down in the calm peace of faith. 
Oh, the blessedness of looking unto Jesus, away from 
every other hope ! What a delightful sense of se- 
curity fills the mind ! What confidence before God ! 
What alacrity in duty ! What unshaken courage in 
the hour of danger ! What triumph in death ! It is 
this, and nothing but this, that can carry us through 
the billows of Jordan. In that solemn hour, when 
the world, with all its vain illusions, fades from the 
view, when eternity is on the point of unveiling its 
awful secrets, when the thought presses heavy on the 
spirit, how shall I stand before the dread Being whom 
I have so often offended ? — we shall all feel the 
unutterable preciousness of the fact that there is a 
Daysman between us and offended justice. " What 
are you doing ? " said a clerical brother to a 
pious and venerable clergyman whom he visited on 
his death-bed. " What am I doing ? " replied the 
gasping but rejoicing saint. "I will tell you what 
I am doing, brother. I am gathering together all 



SERMONS. 



365 



my prayers, all my sermons, all my good deeds, all 
my ill deeds, and I am going to throw them all 
overboard, and swim to glory on the plank of free 
grace" The good old man knew the secret of his 
strength. 

31* 



Consideration or Death. 



XVI. 

THE CONSIDERATION OF DEATH. 



Dent. 32 : 29. &\>ut %g fooulb tonsibtr ifyexr latter tnb. 



HESE words are part of the final address of 
Moses to the Israelites, whom he had assem- 
bled to receive his parting benediction. He 
knew the levity and deceitfulness of their 
hearts. From a thousand facts which had occurred 
before his eyes, he knew that they would in a short 
time apostatize from the Lord, and draw down his 
burning displeasure. While, therefore, he tenderly 
blesses them, he intermingles the most affecting warn- 
ings and admonitions. 

It is highly probable that the exhortation before us 
does not immediately relate to the death of individ- 
uals, but to the fates and fortunes of the nation at 
large, on which he had been discoursing in the pre- 
vious context. Yet it will bear the former interpreta- 
tion, and we do no violence to Scripture in making 
this view the basis of our intended remarks. Doubt- 
less it was in the mind of the venerable legislator as 
well as the other. He had just received the intima- 
tion that his departure was at hand, and hourly ex- 
pected the call. Suspended thus between life and 
death, realizing the vanity of the former, the cer- 



370 



SEBMOXS. 



tainty and awfulness of the latter, with what yearn- 
ings of heart must lie have regarded the immense 
multitude spread before him at the foot of the emi- 
nence where he stood ! Each was like himself, im- 
mortal, — each like himself naked to the arrows of 
the king of terrors. They were his brethren ; the 
bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh ; yet they were 
spending their precious hours in a round of idle 
gayety and folly, dancing on the brink of destiny, 
without sending a thought beyond the present mo- 
ment. Filled with pity and alarm, we may suppose 
that he breaks forth into the exclamation, " Oh that 
they were wise that they understood this, that they 
would consider their latter end ! " 

This is a subject which concerns you all. I have 
nothing to say upon it that is new, but much that 
is calculated to be practically useful, and of which 
you ought frequently to be reminded. The truths 
which have been uttered a thousand times and have 
become mere household words by repetition, are pre- 
cisely those which we are in greatest danger of for- 
getting. Nor does their perfect self-evidence mend 
the matter. On the contrary, it seems to render them 
more inoperative ; for whose heart palpitates under 
the enunciation of an axiom ? Thus it often happens, 
I doubt not, that preachers, having to a reasonable ex- 
tent the confidence of their congregations, find it 
easier to indoctrinate them in all the mysteries of 
the Athanasian creed, than convince them, as they 
ought to be convinced, that two and two make four. 

We will show, in the first place, what is signified by 
considering our latter end. 



SERMONS. 



371 



Second, the wisdom of so doing ; in other words, 
point out the benefits that will accrue from such 
an employment of our thoughts. 

As to the signification of the text, it means in 
general a habit of serious thoughtfulness on the 
termination of life, as opposed to that unreflective- 
ness of character, that butterfly volatility incapable 
of looking back to the past or forward to the future, 
which prevail so extensively. To consider a thing is 
to examine it with care, studying its causes, proper- 
ties, and effects, turning it over for this purpose from 
side to side, viewing it in one light and then another, 
till we have got a complete acquaintance with it ; and 
this is the consideration here. It denotes more than 
a casual thought extorted by an incident to be soon 
forgotten, and the thought along with it. There 
must be a habit, a course of reflection. We will 
frequently bring the subject near, as a man would 
something at a distance to ascertain what it is. We 
will investigate its origin, its import, not only that 
lying on the surface, but its deeper meaning, if it has 
any, and its probable bearings on our happiness 
and misery. More particularly we will view it as 
God's penalty on transgression, as most certain, all 
its circumstances predetermined, perhaps near ; and 
lastly, as the end of moral trial and the commence- 
ment of eternal retribution. 

I. They who duly consider their latter end see in 
it God's penalty on transgression. It is an amaz- 
ing folly of men which accepts the belief that death, 
as we now find it, is nothing more than a physical 
event, a simple phenomenon necessarily springing 



372 SERMONS. 

from the laws of organic being. To say that a man 
has died is, according to this philosophy, tantamount 
to saying that a leaf fell from a tree on a bleak morn- 
ing in November. There are, indeed, some grains of 
truth in the view, which it is worth while to separate 
from the falsehood, that science may be not suspected 
of lending its countenance to a superficial infidelity. 
That the present body was not designed to be the 
soul's permanent residence is demonstrable from its 
frailty, the grossness of its functions, and its evident 
subjection to all the laws of animal life. Nor was 
the case different with our first parents in Paradise. 
Their corporeal organization was temporary, intended 
for a temporary condition. The race that was to 
spring from their loins God designed to exist not 
simultaneously, but by succession, one generation 
coming and another going, till its collective destiny 
should be consummated by elevation to a higher 
domain of life and felicity. The dissolution of the 
body, therefore, viewed as a physical fact, is not the 
effect of apostasy, but the operation of a great law of 
change, originally impressed like the law of propaga- 
tion. In this sense man is born to die, as he is 
to live. However Adam might have exceeded his 
nine hundred years, a change would come at last, and 
he would have been exalted to a loftier place in the 
city of God, by a process fully equivalent to physical 
death. His body would have been given to the 
elements ; the earths and gases which compose 
it would have returned to the vast storehouse of 
nature from which they had been temporarily bor- 
rowed, to enter again into new forms of life, and thus 



SERMONS. 



373 



carry out the scheme of Providence that the earth be 
filled with inhabitants. 

But while we cheerfully concede thus much, we 
must observe that the change adverted to is a small 
part of what we now call death. Doubtless had man 
remained innocent, it would have been accompanied 
with every circumstance calculated to make it a 
blessing instead of a curse. The benignant Father 
would have put his children to sleep in the evening of 
their earthly day, in a way so gentle as to be itself 
a happiness. They would have fallen, like ripe fruit 
from the tree, with no other marked sensation than a 
consciousness of growing weakness, which would have 
reconciled them to their departure, and even made 
it welcome. Disease, in aggravated and malignant 
forms, would have been unknown ; the gracious pres- 
ence of God have been felt ; no accusing conscience 
would have been there, nor would the terrors of a 
dark futurity have gathered round the dying couch, 
turning the most simple and harmless of natural 
events into the most horrible of calamities. It is^ 
this, — the moral aspect which sin has given the last 
struggle of nature, — it is its ghastly accompaniments 
that constitute what Scripture and the common lan- 
guage of mankind call death. Whatever it once was, — 
the friend, the benefactor of man, the angel of peace, 
that by a gentle kiss, or a breathing, light as the 
sleeping infant's, parted the happy spirit from its clay 
tenement to seek an eternal building in the heavens, 
— most certainly it was very different from what we 
see every day around us. 

Is there not a curse in the last? Can any one 

82 



374 



SERMONS. 



deny it, who has ever seen a death-bed, or a funeral ? 
Why (to amplify a little) has a benevolent Deity, 
whose goodness reigns over all his other works, been 
pleased to emancipate his noblest and best from 
mortal shackles by a process calling up so many 
dismal ideas ? Death ! There is something freezing 
in the very sound. Nature shudders at the thought, 
at the most distant prospect of it. And no wonder ! 
It is not a mere bugbear deriving its terrors from 
a cowardly imagination. What tremendous precipices 
to be passed over in going down to the dreary valley ! 
Here an accumulation of agonizing pains, — weary 
days, and groaning, sleepless nights ; there the sinking 
of the heart, the utter desolation of soul known only 
to the one that feels it when told that all hope is 
gone. But after being fairly entered the jaws of 
(sheol) the monster, who can tell how tremendous the 
passage through ? Some of our friends may have de- 
scended to the portals and returned again rehearsing 
the trials they have encountered ; but none who passed 
beyond have been so courteous as to revisit us and 
blab the secret of their journey. The information 
can be got only from experience. To know, we must 
feel the shock winch tears asunder soul and body, 
and separates from every present enjoyment. The 
sun withdraws his blessed light and is eclipsed for- 
ever ; the moon and the fair stars are blotted out ; the 
genial influences of spring are no more felt ; the 
fragrance of summer no more gladdens. Our bodies 
are wrapped up, boxed and cast into a pit as things 
too offensive for God or man to look at. Our dear- 
est friend, when he undertakes to press on our cold 



SERMONS. 



375 



cheek the last kiss of love, turns away loathing. 
Already, before obtaining our final resting-place, we 
are a prey to putrefaction. Every tie that binds us 
to the living is dissolved. Parents leave their chil- 
dren, children their parents ; husbands their wives, 
wives their husbands ; and the laceration of these 
bonds, with what untold agony does it fill the earth ! 

And is all this, combined with what is infinitely 
worse and never to be overlooked, an accusing con- 
science, a sense of guilt, and a dark foreboding of the 
future, a mere law of physics ; a simple, natural 
phenomenon like the flux of the tides ; the rising and 
setting of the stars ; the reproduction and decay 
of vegetables ? Do not believe it. Scout the sense- 
less absurdity, and listen in devout humility to that 
Holy Book which gives the true solution, the only 
philosophy that expounds the awful mystery of the 
subject. " By one man sin entered into the world, 
and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, 
for that all have sinned." In this light you must 
always contemplate your latter end. You must view 
it as in itself a melancholy thing, as God's curse 
on man, — his deep burning brand on the traitor who 
dared to lift his puny arm against Omnipotence. 

The neglect of this view accounts for the little im- 
portance which many attach to death, in seeming 
at least, for the hardihood with which they encounter 
it, though confessedly destitute of a religious hope. 
Such cases are not rare. How often do we see the 
man of abandoned wickedness remaining such to the 
last, expiring with blasphemy on his tongue ! The 
apparent frequency — more apparent than real how- 



376 



S EE 31 OX S. 



ever — of such exhibitions almost tempts superficial 
observers to doubt the necessity of religion, to ask, 
" If the ungodly man can prance so gallantly to his 
end, of what use are its sublime consolations. With- 
out them it is plain I can live, and without them 
it seems equally plain I can die." The objection is 
easily answered : a mighty distinction is overlooked. 
It is a very different thing for a man to die with his 
eyes shut and his eyes open ; to die stupidly ignorant 
of what he is doing, and to die with a full apprecia- 
tion of its solemn import. The former is the charac- 
ter of the persons referred to. They have never 
seriously considered the subject ; they are strangers to 
the moral physiology of death, and hence they can 
view it, in prospect at least, with what the world 
thinks admirable firmness. 

The reflection, however, cannot but occur to a 
thoughtful spirit, that, after all, this is not a desirable 
state of things. Surely those are not to be envied 
whose courage is in the direct ratio of their igno- 
rance, and would ooze out from their fingers' ends 
at the entrance of a little light. TVe would hardly 
call the idiot a hero who, ignorant of the nature and 
effects of firearms, would rush on the exploding can- 
non. True heroism consists in serenity of mind, ac- 
companied with a full consciousness of danger; and, 
therefore, the Christian is the only hero, because he 
only meets the last enemy with smiles, recognizing 
that he is an enemy. As for those bold defiances of 
the ungodly, their bravadoes, be it remembered, are 
heard only at the beginning of the contest ; they 
have no opportunity to inform us what discoveries of 



SERMONS. 



377 



comparative strength take place before its close. One 
thing is certain, that the men who boast they fear it 
not, know it not. Like the simple child, bearding 
the Numidian lion in his lair, they have no concep- 
tion of the terribleness of their enemy, till irrecov- 
erably in his grasp. We have read, or heard 
somewhere, the observation, that, after receiving a 
mortal wound in battle, the last hours of those noted 
for their dashing gallantry are frequently not in 
keeping with the gay hardihood displayed a short 
time before. The great poet's description of Cassar 
in a fever, crying out like a sick girl, is often verified. 
Bodily prostration will, in part account for it, but 
not entirely ; for the delicate female and feeble old 
age have, in similar circumstances, evinced a beauti- 
ful calmness and self-possession. The truth is, the 
fire-eating courage which wins such golden opinions 
from men is that of the well-fed animal rather than 
of the mind, and, therefore, the whole charm dissolves 
at the loss of a little blood. More than all, a new 
light is suddenly let into the soul ; it begins to feel 
itself in the true world, — no longer the phantom 
world, the world of vain illusion : there is an over- 
whelming consciousness of being in the presence, not 
of a phenomenon, but a stern messenger of Heaven, 
enforcing the penalty of a violated law. 

In the second place, we should consider our latter 
end as one of those inexorable certainties which it 
would be sheer idiocy to doubt. From the upper 
chancery, sentence has gone forth against all the chil- 
dren of Adam. The other edicts of Omnipotence 
have been violated, but this is proof against trans- 

32* 



378 



SERMONS. 



gression. The hardest sinner yields it exemplary 
obedience. In other wars, the infant, the aged, the 
feeble-minded, are exempted. But no discharge 
here. The death-field is strewn, in equal profusion, 
with the bones of the child a span long and the mag- 
nificent warrior who filled the world with his re- 
nown. The youth and veteran lie together. The 
form, admired by every eye and sung by many a 
tongue, is quietly stretched beside haggard age. 
Friends, foes, parents, children, master and servant, 
ministers and hearers, physicians and patients, teach- 
ers and students, meet on common ground, forgetting 
their previous sympathies, antipathies, and rela- 
tions : — 

" What is this world? 
What but a spacious burial-field unwalled, 
Strewed with death's spoils? 
The very turf on which we tread, once lived ; 
And we that live, must lend our carcasses 
To cover our own offspring." 

These are truths which no one pretends to gainsay. 
But I must observe that the consideration to which 
our text invites us implies more than assent to them. 
We must lay them to heart. Ah, here is the difficult 
point ! It is an easy thing to acquiesce in the gen- 
eral maxim, and say, with a sentimental shrug and 
contraction of the eyebrow, "All must die." But it 
is not so easy to bring the fact home to our bosom. 
Men do not like to reflect on it with any closeness, 
and therefore put it far off ; as if heedlessness would 
render certainty a little less certain. 

The mind seems, in this respect, endowed with a 
strange power; a power of closing its eyes on the 



SERMONS. 



379 



most eminent evils, — looking right away from ob- 
jects the sight of which give it uneasiness. There 
are men who could preserve a good degree of cheer- 
fulness with the certainty of being in a few days 
tortured at the stake, provided there was a prepon- 
derance of chances in favor of its not taking place 
to-morrow. In some respects it is a happy constitu- 
tion. Where vivid anticipations of the future have 
no connection with present duty, nor with prepara- 
tion for that future, the indulgence of them is morbid, 
only tending to make us miserable before the time. 
But, surely, it is the very folly of the moon to put 
far from us the certainties of to-morrow, when bring- 
ing them near would have the best influence on the 
conduct of to-day. Yet so act the most. Like per- 
sons on the verge of bankruptcy, they will not inspect 
the books that give the proof of it. They are like a 
heap of pismires, so intent on hoarding their paltry 
grains,. that they do not see the foot lifted up to crush 
them and their possessions. This folly you will avoid 
if you obey the injunction of the text. You will 
consider your latter end as certain ; you will fre- 
quently think of it as such, as something that stands 
right in your path, and must be encountered. Es- 
pecially you will avoid that rock of perdition to 
thousands, the idea that it is at an indefinite distance. 
Life at best is short, and liable every moment to be 
cut shorter still, by disease and accident. Every 
pain, therefore, you feel, every disorder, however 
trifling, should be interpreted as a knock at the door, 
by the officer who is to enforce a writ of ejectment, 
— as a signal for striking tent, and preparing to 
cross the Jordan. 



380 



SERMONS. 



Again, thirdly, as death is certain, so we are called 
on to consider that the time with all the circum- 
stances is predetermined, however to human appear- 
ance casual. We have a striking example of this 
in Moses himself, the author of the text. To avoid 
the bloody edict of Pharaoh, he is cast, when newly 
born, into the river, to die by an easy death. But 
he cannot die. The daughter of Pharaoh rescues and 
adopts him as her son. His conduct exposes him to 
the infuriate enmity of the whole Egyptian nation, — 
the child of destiny cannot yet die. Thousands and 
ten thousands of the people, indeed all except two 
or three, bleach with their bones the wilderness 
through which he led them to the land of promise. 
He bears a charmed life ; at length comes to the land 
of Moab, — ascends Mount Nebo, and there dies, 
" according to the Word of the Lord." The cruel 
Ahab, to avoid the fate predicted, that where the dogs 
licked up the blood of Naboth, they should perform 
the same office for him, enters the field of battle in dis- 
guise : " A Syrian archer," we are informed, " drew 
his bow at a venture and smote him between the joints 
of the harness : so the king died and the dogs licked 
his blood, according to the word of the Lord." Re- 
peatedly did the Jews attempt the death of our 
Redeemer ; but his hour being not yet come, their 
efforts proved abortive. Time rolls on ; at length 
the season arrives, and Jesus expires, at the ninth 
hour, in the city of Jerusalem, according to the " de- 
terminate counsel and foreknowledge of God." 

Equally true is it that to all of us there is an 
appointed time on earth ; that our days are as the 



SERMONS. 



381 



days of a hireling. What an interesting thought I 
In God's Book is registered, with minutest accuracy, 
every breath we draw, every action we perform, till 
we enter the silent land. He counts the beats of 
our pulse. To the man of piety there is nothing 
offensive in this doctrine. On the contrary, it is as 
precious to his heart as its truth is nearly self-evident 
to his understanding. He feels no trembling at the 
thought of being in the hands of God ; no regrets 
that when he leaves the world he is not called to 
erect his last altar to chance, that most forlorn of all 
substitutes for God ever devised by human folly. 

Fourthly. Another point we should consider is, that 
we can only die once. If a man die, shall he live 
again ? Having departed, shall he return ? " Nay," 
says the apostle, " it is appointed unto men once to 
die." If you transact not this weighty business 
right at first, you can never rectify your terrible mis- 
take. There is no salvo of " errors excepted ; " no 
second edition with corrections. No light from 
heaven penetrates the clod ; no voice of pardon 
echoes through the gloom of the sepulchre. There is 
no knowledge, nor work, nor device in the grave, 
whither we are hastening. What need, then, to die 
aright at first ! In most of the great transactions of 
life, if a blunder be committed, it may be corrected. 
This is an experiment never to be repeated, and its 
issues are eternal. 

For, lastly, we are to consider death as the termi- 
nation of our probationary course. In this consists 
its awful, its infinite importance. It ends the day 
allotted for repentance, and introduces that interest- 



382 



SERMONS. 



ing period when we must give an account of our 
stewardship. Then our whole past shall be investi- 
gated. How solemn the process ! How searching 
the scrutiny ! Every deed done in the body exam- 
ined by Him who was privy to each ; every failure 
detected; every work of darkness brought to noon- 
day light ; no partiality in the Judge ; the decision 
irreversible ; the execution instant ! Surely it is a 
solemn thing to die. 

Let me conclude this head with an advice as to the 
way in which we should consider our latter end. It 
is a general maxim that nothing renders a study so 
profitable as pursuing it with method and regularity. 
Let one evening in the week, then, be given up to 
the duty we are recommending. Whatever period 
be fixed on, make it sacred as the holy of holies in 
the Jewish temple. Shut out the visitor and friend, 
the wife, the domestic, and the child, and let the 
whole soul be called on to serious contemplation. 
Such a course, adopted and persevered in, would 
produce the most happy effects. 

Also, make it your care to improve the providences 
of God around you. You have been, for example, at 
a sick-bed and have heard the last groans of dissolv- 
ing nature. Cherish the impressions you have re- 
ceived, and instead of laboring, as is too often done, 
to blot the gloomy scene from the page of memory, 
endeavor sometimes to call it up anew and in all 
its details of thrilling sublimity. The like with 
funeral solemnities. On entering the house of death 
endeavor to catch a glimpse of the corpse. It is 
indeed a melancholy spectacle, but an instructive 



SERM ONS. 



383 



teacher. When arrived at the place of interment, 
screw up your courage to another duty, to look down 
into the doleful prison-house and say, there, too, 
is my home. In fine, instead of discouraging, court 
reflection by improving the various calls and moni- 
tions of Providence. This it is to be truly wise, 
to consider our latter end. 

II. Let us proceed to show very briefly that it 
is so (wise), by pointing out some of the benefits 
that flow from it. It will be a most powerful anti- 
dote against the love of sin. Why is it that so many 
of those around us have succeeded in the desperate 
endeavor of casting away utterly all fear of God, and 
are carried hither and thither by their lusts to work 
iniquity with greediness ? Undoubtedly, one and a 
principal reason is, they do not reflect ; they never 
call up that awful and certain period when they shall 
be torn from their unlawful pleasures, and stand 
naked before God's great tribunal. Could they only 
be roused from this torpor, the illusions in which they 
have enveloped themselves would vanish as the mists 
of the night before the light of the morning. They 
would ask themselves questions that would give them 
no rest by day, and appall them with visions by night. 
How can I live a life of rebellion against that 
holy and omnipotent Being, who is soon to be my 
judge ? May the summons come to-morrow, to-day, 
this moment ? my deluded soul ! awake from 
thy sleep ; the avenger of blood is behind thee ; flee, 
flee to the horns of the altar. Such is the result to 
which obedience to our text would lead. It is the 
most effectual bridle on sinful affections, — the most 



384 



SERMONS. 



eloquent of preachers against all ungodliness and 
worldly lusts. 

Further, it will be found an excellent antidote 
against that intemperate levity which, with most of 
us, but especially the young, is a serious impediment 
to their soul's salvation. Go, my merry gentleman, 
my roaring, ranting Billy, into thine inner chamber, 
after having, by thy obscene wit, thy jibes, thy pro- 
fane gambols, thy wanton songs, set the company in 
a roar. Go, and converse awhile with death. Let 
memory recall the convulsions, the wild, distorted 
eyes, the dying rattle, of some endeared friend. En- 
ter the church-yard ; read the inscriptions of here a 
babe that scarce saw the light ; here a man who fell 
before the destroyer in ruddy health and masculine 
vigor ; here of one who had maintained the contest, 
as his admiring stone takes care to inform us, until 
he had nearly completed his century. Mark the 
hearse approaching to add another. Then turn in- 
ward to thyself. Imagine what a short time will 
undoubtedly realize, — thy chamber darkened, thy 
friends standing round thy bed, — a stillness only 
broken by that saddest of litanies, the gasps of a 
mortal in the last struggle, with the response in sighs 
and stifled groans of attendants. The physician has 
ceased his care. Your soul sits on your lips and 
flutters to be gone. ' Tis gone. The curtain drops. 
The tragedy is over ! " Alas, poor Yorick ! quite 
chopfallen, now ! " Think of such a scene, child of 
frolic and of fun. It is a bitter remedy, but healing. 

Again, it will induce submission to the adverse dis- 
pensations, or those we are apt to deem such, of divine 



SERMONS. 



385 



Providence. The man who has reflected much on 
the end of his journey, must, from the necessity of 
the case, suffer with equanimity the various ills that 
may befall him. He knows they will soon be over. 
Why, then, should he allow himself to be disquieted ? 
If the accommodations of his inn are bad, the night 
is not long, and there are already indications of 
morning. Were there no relief in prospect, his case 
might be thought a hard one compared with that of 
his fortunate neighbor ; but as the whole load is to 
be thrown off in a few days, while in perhaps a 
shorter time, his fortunate neighbor will be deprived 
of all his advantages, it were childish to repine. So 
the Christian reasons and acts. He sustains disap- 
pointments manfully ; parts with friends sorrowfully, 
indeed, but without murmuring ; and, in all trials of 
faith and patience, maintains a serene dignity, of 
which nothing can deprive him. 

Lastly, the due consideration of our latter end will 
make it easy, when the period arrives. The most 
effectual method of destroying our fear of an object 
is making ourselves familiar with it ; and thus, fre- 
quently contemplating the ugly visage of death, is 
the best security against that panic terror which its 
near approach is apt to excite. In this case it does 
not come by surprise. It finds us prepared, firm, ex- 
pectant. By anticipating it while yet distant, we were 
led to make our peace with God through the blood of 
the everlasting covenant ; and thus armed against all 
emergencies, we shall find its malignity destroyed, 
the apprehension of it removed, and can exclaim : 
" Yea, though I walk through the valley of the 

33 



386 



SEBMONS. 



shadow of death, I will fear no evil ; for thou art 
with me ; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." 
Not only so, but it returns to its original character 
as the passage-way from earth to heaven, the portal 
of immortality, the gate of pearl through which the 
rejoicing saint enters the city of God. 

In conclusion, let Christians be animated by the 
solemn call in our text to increased diligence in their 
spiritual work. You well know by what an uncer- 
tain tenure you hold your present existence. The 
arrow intended to pierce your heart may be already 
on the string. In another hour your sun may set in 
darkness ; in another day you may be laid in that 
unconscious bed where you will have no share in 
anything under the sun. Endeavor, therefore, to be 
useful now ; and whatever your hands find to do, do 
it with your might. Perhaps you are looking for- 
ward to a protracted period of service in the vine- 
yard. But you may be mistaken. The present only 
is yours. Whatever opportunities then occur of glo- 
rifying God and blessing your fellow-men, promptly 
and sedulously improve. They have rapid wings ; 
seize them as they fly. 

As to you who feel upon your consciences the bur- 
den of having entirely at least so far rejected the 
service of your God and Saviour, let me entreat you 
to pause and reflect. The arm of divine justice is 
lifted up, and if it fall it will break your every bone, 
and sink you into the nethermost hell. Begin, I 
pray, your work of preparation now. Why not let 
this day witness your purpose of rising from the lap 
of indolence and devoting yourselves to the great end 



SERMONS. 



387 



of being ? Why not make this day a memorial of 
your recovery from the fatal lethargy in which you 
have spent the morning of life — from the palsy of all 
those nobler powers which the Creator claims as due 
exclusively to himself ? Mark it in your calendar as 
the day on which you awoke to duty and to God — on 
which you were born to an immortal life. There is 
no room for procrastination. The urn which holds 
the destinies of men is continually shaking, and the 
first that comes forth perhaps is yours. " Now is the 
accepted time ; now the day of salvation." 



The Resurrection oe the Body. 



XVII. 



THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 



1 Cor. 15:42. %a also is t\z xznmxzdiavc of i\z biab. 



HE doctrine of the resurrection from the dead 
is the peculiar glory of revelation ; and the con- 
fident hope of it, one of the Christian's grand 
supports under his present manifold trials 
and infirmities. Deprived of all resources but the 
glimmerings of unenlightened reason, the grave 
bounds our prospects, and must be contemplated as 
our permanent abode. In consigning to the sep- 
ulchre the remains of beloved friends, no hope of re- 
animation could be indulged. The fond husband, 
the tender wife and mother, would perform the last 
offices to the object dearer to them than life, under 
the harrowing conviction that it would mingle eter- 
nally with its kindred dust. Accordingly, we find 
that every sect of the ancient heathen philosophers, 
whatever ideas they might entertain concerning the 
immortality of the soul, denied, nay, scouted the re- 
suscitation of the body. Hence, when Paul preacjied 
" Jesus and the resurrection " to the learned Athe- 
nians, both Stoics and Epicureans united in branding 
him as a babbler and setter-forth of strange doc- 
trines. 




392 



SERMONS. 



Blessed be God, we know this babbling to be the 
words of truth and soberness. That same gospel 
which has brought life and immortality to light has 
given us the assurance that a day is at hand when 
" they that sleep in the dust shall hear the voice of 
the Son of God, and come forth : some to life, some 
to shame and everlasting contempt." 

This is the doctrine taught by the apostle in our 
text ; with special reference, however, to those who 
die the death of the righteous : in other parts of his 
writings the fates of the wicked being given with ter- 
rible distinctness. It is our purpose to waive the 
consideration of the latter at present, — not being in- 
vited to it, by the passage ; and with regard to the 
former, we do not propose to offer any elaborate 
proof of a truth so clearly contained in the Scrip- 
tures, but to elucidate and remove prejudices against 
it by a few plain reflections ; making no appeals to 
the fancy, and little to the feelings, though the sub- 
ject readily admits of both. 

But, first, let us look, for a few moments, at the de- 
scription given by the apostle of the qualities of the 
risen body. It is full of significance. He warns us 
against the puerile conception, that there will be a 
mere reproduction of the present mass of flesh, 
bones, and sinews, — a conception, which unspeak- 
ably degrades the doctrine, and would enlist all cul- 
tivated understandings in violent opposition to it. 
He tells us, plainly, that it shall have undergone sur- 
prising changes, and differ as much from its former 
self as the glory of the celestial differs from that of 
the terrestrial ; using expressions, which, if failing in 
scientific exactness, are eminently suggestive. 



SERMONS 



393 



" It is sown in corruption." The present body is 
an aggregate of substances tending to dissolution, 
— only kept together in consequence of a violence 
continually exerted on them by that incomprehensi- 
ble energy called the living principle. Life is thus a 
forced state, in which matter yields a short and reluc- 
tant obedience to a foreign master. The seeds of 
putrefaction are sown broadcast through the whole 
frame, and are developed by the slightest causes. A 
trifling part, for example, receives some little injury. 
It spreads from limb to limb : soon gangrene com- 
mences, — steals up to the citadel of life. The im- 
mortal spirit, sickened with its habitation, departs in 
search of other associations : the earth receives it, and 
it says to corruption, " Thou art my father ; " to the 
worm, " Thou art my mother and my sister." 

" It is raised," says the apostle, " in incorruption." 
It is no more liable to change. The affinities which 
bind together the various parts are so powerful that 
no violence can separate them ; nor can they be af- 
fected by other affinities. Hence, all the seeds of 
disease and death are left behind in the grave. 

" It is sown in dishonor." The curse of Heaven 
entailed on sin stamps it, while here, with indelible 
disgrace. In such ignominy is it sown, that its best 
friends turn away with disgust, and are glad to re- 
move it from their view. Enter a hospital ; how 
shocking the spectacle that offers ! — and the same 
impression, though in a less degree, is made by every 
dying-bed. No matter how warmly our affections 
may go forth to the sufferer, underlying our tender 
sympathies is a feeling that we are contemplating 



394 



SEEM ONS. 



something degraded and vile. "When death has taken 
actual possession, what a chill creeps over the sur- 
vivors ! How fearfully they steal a passing look at 
the ghastly object ! With what an effort they press 
the last kiss on the clammy forehead ; and, after the 
sod has covered it, what relief they feel, as from an 
oppressive load ! By this wise provision a merciful 
Providence reconciles us to the anguish of parting, 
which otherwise would be intolerable. The good 
Parent proceeds with us, as the mother oftentimes in 
weaning her reluctant child. By suitable pungent 
applications she embitters the sources of its enjoy- 
ment, so that it turns away disgusted from the loving 
bosom to which it clung a few hours before with such 
intensity of affection. 

But it is " raised in glory" Not only shall every 
blemish be removed, but it shall be adorned with 
celestial splendor and beauty. If you want a faint 
representation of it, look at the sun in his midday 
brightness ; for our Lord informs us, " The righteous 
shall shine forever, as the sun in the kingdom of the 
Father." Look at the face of Moses, so radiant with 
the divine glory reflected from it that a veil must be 
interposed to render the sight endurable to the hu- 
man eye. Nay, you must pierce the heavens, and 
behold Jesus at the right hand of God ; for the 
bodies of his saints, we are told, " shall be fashioned 
like his own glorious body." 

u It is sown in weakness" We all know the feeble- 
ness of the human body on its first entrance into life ; 
and this attends it through the whole of its transient 
existence. But it is raised in strength. When the 



SERMONS. 



395 



great trumpet sounds, the sleeper comes forth free 
from every trace of infirmity. To use the expressive 
language of Scripture, the wings of a great eagle 
are given it, on which it soars aloft, and sees sun, 
moon, and stars at its feet ; yea, with open face and 
unblanched eye, can behold the glory of the Lord. 

" It is sown a natural body." It is at present of 
the earth, earthy ; subject to the same laws which 
govern inferior animals, actuated by similar im- 
pulses ; exhausted by labor, tormented by hunger, 
thirst, and other appetites ; destroyed by want of 
sleep. " But it is raised a spiritual body." Though 
still material, it will be so refined that its qualities 
will bear a sort of resemblance to those angelic spirits. 
A complete emancipation will take place from bondage 
to animal cravings. The sensations of hunger and 
thirst, owing to some wonderful change in its consti- 
tution that will provide the supplies to its vitality 
from without in another way, shall never return. 
So spiritual will be its substance, that, instead of 
clogging the soul, it will be her aid and vehicle, in 
carrying on those noble employments that constitute 
the felicity of the future state : it will attend her 
most rapid movements, and with her expatiate un- 
tired through all the vast works of G-od. 

Nor can we doubt that the senses, those corporeal 
avenues through which she obtains the greater part 
of her knowledge, will be prodigiously multiplied 
and enlarged, enabling her to take in ideas of objects 
and their qualities, of which she has no more con- 
ception at present than the man born deaf of sounds, 
or the blind of the hues of the rainbow. 



396 



SERMONS. 



Such is the brief description given by the apostle 
of the change that awaits us. Our belief in it is not 
a conjecture, nor the offspring of our wishes, which 
are so often fathers to our thoughts and give a false 
truthfulness to the merest figments of imagination. 
A divine Teacher hath divulged the secrets of the 
grave. That same Jesus who, in his own person, 
broke the bands of death, proving, by the best of all 
methods, the experimental and historical, that there 
is an upward way from the darkness of the tomb, has 
given the assurance that all who love him shall share 
in his triumph : " Our mortal shall put on immortal- 
ity ; our corruption shall put on incorruption." 

We observe, in the first place, that such an event 
is possible ; involves no absurdity or contradiction. 
This might seem to be making small progress in the 
discussion. Yet it is really more than half, cov- 
ering the whole ground of plausible opposition. The 
principal argument against our doctrine — a doctrine 
so congenial to all the aspirations of the heart — 
originates in the notion of some absolute impossibility, 
which, being absolute, cannot be overcome even by 
almighty power. On this principle it was opposed 
by the philosophers of old, with whom Paul came in 
contact on a memorable occasion. They regarded it 
as contradictory and absurd. Looking no higher 
than the most ordinary and vulgar class of second 
causes, and worshipping gods nearly as imbecile as 
themselves, — when they contemplated the human 
frame as dissolved in the dust, mingled with the 
ashes of hundreds of generations, incorporated with 
brutes, with vegetables, with other men, blended with 



SERMONS. 



397 



the elements, — they pronounced the belief of it the 
monstrous birth of a disordered brain. 

Such, too, is the reasoning of modern opposers. 
Determined, in their pride of wisdom, to fathom 
every truth with the plumb-line, not only of their own 
reason, but, what is immeasurably more preposterous, 
their own experience, they, in all the procedures of 
their understandings, adopt the maxim, that scarcely 
anything is possible which they cannot explain. 
Finding our doctrine to contradict present appear- 
ances, to demand a reference to other agencies than 
those which are seen daily operating around them, 
they rush to the inference at once, that it must not, 
cannot be. 

But what fatuity is this ! Do we not, every hour, 
witness facts we cannot account for, the denial of 
whose possibility would establish universal scepti- 
cism ? Mark the reasoning of an apostle, on this 
subject, in answer to the question, " How are the 
dead raised up, and with what bodies do they 
come ? " " Thou fool ! " he demands. But this ren- 
dering of the original is too pungent. The objec- 
tions to a rising of the dead, that force themselves 
on the most honest mind, in which simple faith in 
God has not wrought its perfect work, are plausible 
and exceedingly perplexing. No wonder that they 
startled such babes in religious attainment as the 
Corinthians, who had only yesterday passed out 
from the darkness of heathenism, and, like other 
children, were disposed to ask questions. Paul, as 
a Christian gentleman, would not, on this account, 
brand them with an epithet the most contemptuous 

34 



398 



SERMONS. 



and offensive in our strong Anglo-Saxon vocabulary. 
We hear him saying, then, not " Thou fool," or 
thou Jesuit, Deist, Atheist, Pantheist, — with which 
many of our polemics adorn their paragraphs, and 
call it strong writing, — but, " thou man without 
reflection. Consult thine own experience. That 
which thou sowest is not quickened except it die, and 
that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body 
which shall be, but bare grain, perchance of wheat 
or some other grain." " Show me," he challenges 
them, " how this is effected. Expound, in an intelli- 
gent way, this common, every-day resurrection : then 
will I turn expounder, and solve all questions con- 
cerning the resurrection of the body. What more 
different than the seed-corn lying in the earth with- 
out root, blade, stock, and ear, — and its subsequent 
state ? Who could have anticipated the change ? 
Who, on your maxims, could have thought it possible, 
were it not matter of daily observation? Cannot, 
then, the power of God, that vivified the grain, lying 
to appearance dead and putrid in the earth, also re- 
store our bodies after dissolution, calling them up 
from the noisome pit to a new and permanent life ? " 

Paul's logic is as strong as it is ingenious. 

But something more special must be said on this 
point. Difficulties have been urged, with no little 
pertinacity, which have thrown a cloud over many 
minds fully alive to the greatness and power of God. 
" Changes are continually going on in the human 
frame, so great that it loses its proper identity a 
hundred times before its departure from the present 
life. How, then, is it possible that the same mass of 



SERMONS. 



399 



matter (a hundred times renewed) should be raised ? 
Besides, many of the particles have been absorbed in 
other men's bodies, — those of cannibals, for instance, 
whose substance, we may suppose, in many cases, to 
be made up of the flesh and blood of their victims: 
thus two or even a hundred individuals maybe claim- 
ants of the same body." These, with other objections 
from the same mint, seem, in the view of some, to 
place a literal resurrection beyond the reach of Di- 
vine Almightiness. 

In replying, allow me to observe, that the supposi- 
tion of the same material properties that form the 
body is not essential to our Christian faith. It is 
pleasing to the fancy, and, constituted as we are, it 
is scarcely possible, perhaps, to maintain a lively, 
glowing belief in the substantial truth, without in- 
vesting it with this agreeable aspect. The pure in- 
tellect often passes over its naked forms to the imagi- 
nation, that they may receive the clothing and color 
necessary to give them power over the heart. When 
they meet with opposition, however, they must be 
taken back — reduced to their original simplicity — 
from the imaginative faculty, and subjected to the 
severe and searching logic of the understanding. We 
repeat, then, that the supposition of an identity of par- 
ticles in the resurrection body with that of the old is 
not at all essential to the Christian faith. Nothing — 
certainly nothing serious — forbids that the identity of 
the present and future vehicle of the soul will be of 
the same kind with that which now subsists, — an 
identity of function, of use, and of relation to one and 
the same thinking substance. It is undoubtedly 



400 



SERM N S. 



true, that, in strict exactness of expression, we are 
not the same that we were a few months since ; that 
every atom has departed and been succeeded by 
others. Yet it is equally true, that we never perplex 
ourselves with the fear of being passed into different 
men. Our arms, legs, and eyes, our nerves, sinews, 
and flesh have more than once been changed for 
other legs and arms, nerves, sinews, and flesh ; yet 
we affirm, without stopping a moment to consider the 
matter, that we possess the same body that years ago 
slept in our mother's arms ! The principle on which 
this is done runs through the whole animal and veg- 
etable kingdom, and is even applied to collections of 
dead matter. We call a river the same to-day as 
yesterday, though not a drop of water is the same. 
We call the gallant frigate, that fifty years ago spread 
its country's ensign to the breeze, the same, though 
not a plank or nail remains of the original structure. 
The common sense of mankind laughs at the small 
logic that would prove an error in such phraseology. 
They are the same, because they perform the same 
functions and sustain the same relations to every 
object around them. No difference exists in our ideas 
of them ; and language, that great instrument of 
human convenience, formed entirely for practical 
uses, recognizes their identity, with a profound con- 
tempt for ontological distinctions, which would only 
unfit it to be the medium of social intercourse. Now 
the gospel speaks to us in plain, human language, — 
addresses itself to the popular understanding. Al- 
though, therefore, not a particle of the risen body 
may be able to establish a claim of prior occupancy ; 



SERMONS. 



401 



though the various earths and gases which compose 
it, — the soda, potash, and hydrogen and carbon, — 
are there for the first time; the blessed doctrine of the 
text is not in the least affected. The Apostle Paul 
asks, in an argument," Does God care for oxen ? " And 
we may ask here, does he care for phosphate of lime ? 
In compounding the resurrection bodies* of his people, 
will it be of the smallest consequence to him or to 
us that the identical pinch of iron and half-farthing's 
worth of sulphur which entered into the old, at some 
period of their ever-varying existence, are not pres- 
ent to occupy their former position ? Perhaps not 
only shall the numerical particles all be changed, but 
the substances themselves ; and the rich stores of 
nature shall be ransacked for more exquisite ingre- 
dients. If so, who will find it out ; and if detected 
by some knowing Faraday or Humphrey Davy, who 
will care f 

There is still another view of the subject, in which 
some of the best and strongest Christian minds have 
acquiesced the more readily, because it has a basis in 
Holy Scripture. They suppose the existence in 
human bodies of certain stamina, or germs, formed 
by the cohesion of particles united by such powerful 
affinities that no power in nature can destroy them. 
These may possess a torpid, potential vitality, which 
resists the decomposing agencies continually operating 
on animal matter, may lie in the grave as seeds 
which have been known to retain their reproductive 
virtue for centuries, and, at the appointed time, the 
grand vernal epoch of humanity, touched by the 
genial influences of the new heavens and the new 

34* 



4C2 



SUMMONS. 



earth, may warm into activity, gather, by mysterious 
laws of their own nature, from earth and air, the ele- 
ments required to their organization, into a com- 
plete human body ; and this body may, by a similar 
attraction, find out its immortal companion, to form 
a union with it, which shall never be dissolved. 
Who dare deny the possibility of such nuclei or seeds 
of future life ? The Apostle Paul most evidently favors 
the supposition (if he goes no farther), in the remark- 
able passage on which I am commenting. He asserts 
the identity of the risen body to be the same with 
that of the plant, its parent seed. This view com- 
mends itself, not only as being supported by analo- 
gies in nature, but on another account, to which I 
simply advert. We have already stated, that, ac- 
cording to the common language and sentiments of 
mankind, the identity of a body is not affected by 
any change of the particles which compose it, so long 
as its relations to all other things continue the same, 
and it performs the same functions and offices as here- 
tofore to one and the same conscious mind. But 
this gives us an additional principle of unity, which 
goes far to satisfy the cravings of the imagination 
and the heart for something more palpable. It fur- 
nishes a basis of objective truth and reality, namely, a 
participation in one continued life, extending for- 
wards as well as backwards, and remaining unbroken 
amid the constant change of fleeting particles. The 
oak is the same as that slender twig which, to our 
great grand-parents, appeared just peeping from the 
earth a hundred years before, because there is one 
spirit of life of which they are both participants ; and 



SERMONS. 



403 



so long as this continues, the identity is complete. 
And so of animals. The full-grown elephant is the 
same, not only with itself newly born, but with the 
first speck of life in the womb, and that cannot be 
discerned by the most powerful vision. Now this 
continuity is fully maintained by the doctrine under 
notice. The body never entirely yields to the law of 
dissolution. It does not all die. That mystery 
of mysteries, the principle of vitality, lives on, 
reposing in the bosom of the earth, and waiting for 
the hour of development, which will surely come at 
the proper time and manner. You see, therefore, 
that our graveyards still retain their poetry. The 
truth of things does not, as is too often the case, blast 
with a sirocco breath the natural sentiment. It is 
not an illusion which sends you to weep and to 
rejoice over your departed ones. They are really 
there. From that very spot shall the young bird of 
Paradise, waking out of its long winter sleep, fly to 
its native skies. 

But it is hard, you say, to conceive of these mere 
rudiments of life, so small, so capable of resisting time 
and change, for a period of indefinite duration. 
With regard to their smallness : they are not whales 
or krakens, but their size is quite equal to your own. 
At the earliest period of your existence, had a na1>- 
uralist been curious to pay you a visit of inspec- 
tion, he would have been compelled to take with him 
a solar microscope. The primitive cell out of which, 
the physiologist informs us, all living organisms are 
formed, may, in every case, even that of the largest 
animals, when separated from the matter in which 



404 



SUMMONS. 



nature has enveloped it for safe-keeping, be too 
minute for appreciation by the keenest sense. We 
speak of seeds and the eggs of birds as possessing a 
degree of bulk which may be seen and handled. 
But by far the greatest quantity of substance that 
forms these, is in reality nothing more than the en- 
vehement or husk : the true life-germ within being 
absolutely invisible till the period of germination, 
when the husk, obeying the beautiful laws which 
govern the whole process, falls away ; or, as the apos- 
tle expressed it, dies ; and the young plant, no longer 
cribbed and cabined by environments which have 
now completed their service and become worse than 
useless, bounds into a higher life. As to their power 
of resisting decomposition : look at a drop of water. 
It is formed by the combination of two gaseous sub- 
stances, possessing no quality in common, except the • 
general attributes of matter. Yet the boiling of a 
thousand years would not drive them asunder. They 
are decomposed, indeed, by the agency of galvanism. 
But galvanism is not omnipotent. Sure, there may 
be innumerable unions, over which even this giant 
has no power whatever ; and who will affect such 
knowledge of the inscrutable mystery of organized 
life, as to say, with any assurance, that it cannot co- 
exist with various compounds, the constituents of 
which no power of nature, none, at least, with which 
we are acquainted, can sunder. It is a well-estab- 
lished fact, that the seeds of ordinary plants have been 
found in situations (the coffins of mummies, for in- 
stance) where they remained, in such perfect pres- 
ervation for more than two thousand years, that 



SERMONS. 



405 



when taken out and sown, they have not only germi- 
nated, but advanced to a healthy maturity. 

These different explanations have been adduced 
without the least desire on our part to adopt one or 
the other as an article of faith. The experience of 
all time proves the vanity of attempting to demon- 
strate beforehand in wjiat way God will fulfil his 
plans and purposes. Somehow he almost always dis- 
appoints us. " Wait upon Mm — wait" is the dictate 
both of true science and true religion. Yet the con- 
siderations advanced are not without use ; because 
they show the unreasonableness of that presumptuous 
dogmatism which, by a loud and continued ringing of 
changes on the word " impossible" would rob us of 
one of the most precious truths which Christianity 
has brought down from heaven to bless mankind. 
Nothing in the world more easy than to argue in 
that manner, if it merit the name of argument. It 
requires only a good deal of self-conceit, a very small 
insight into the boundless magnificence and variety 
in whose bosom the little atoms called men and women 
are floating, and the smallest possible fraction of rev- 
erence for the Almighty Creator. It seems more 
than probable, if it admits any doubt at all, that 
there is not a single law of physics, gravitation, im- 
pulse, electricity, magnetism, which a large portion 
of mankind would not pronounce " impossible," were 
they not operating every day before their eyes. If 
one of them, — the effect of lightning, for example, 
or the decomposition of water, — was simply pre- 
dicted as a phenomenon of a future world, exhibited 
as an object of faith , not of present actual observation. 



406 



SERMONS. 



there would, I question not, be a general outburst of 
amazement and incredulity ! 

And this suggests some reflections, which are often 
overlooked, to the serious detriment not only of the 
truth under discussion, but of many others, standing 
in close relation to the future destiny of the race. 
It is strangely assumed, that the final consummation 
of all things, including the resurrection, judgment, 
and the whole chain of events that follow, is not the 
development of a system governed by general laws, 
which are in perfect harmony with other general 
laws, but deviations, miraculous interferences of the 
Creator, to meet certain exigencies which have been 
produced by the entrance of moral evil. Thus sin 
created a necessity of dying, which previously had 
not been contemplated, and the introduction of death 
rendered a new set of measures necessary, — for ex- 
ample, the resurrection, — to bring it into line with the 
divine plans. The whole economy of things has in 
this way been rescinded, and succeeded by a scheme 
of special agency. Creation has proved a blunder 
on the part of the great Architect, which has de- 
manded another creation to put matters right, and 
meet, by proper adjustment, the extraordinary emer- 
gency which, though foreseen, was not provided for. 

We regard this as a crude and unsupported 
hypothesis. There is not the smallest ground for 
imagining that the introduction of moral evil has 
disturbed the general laws of nature and humanity ; 
that our chemistry, astronomy, physics, have suffered 
any material change from the events that transpired 
in the garden of Eden six thousand years ago. And 



SEE M ON S. 



407 



we affirm, by parity of reason, that none has occurred 
in the laws of organic life. Death (we speak not of 
it in the awful scriptural sense of a moral event, 
associated with all that is fearful in a sense of guilt 
and a foreboding of future punishment), but as sim- 
ply a dissolution of the body into its original ele- 
ments, consisting of a few gases and metallic parti- 
cles, was a necessity of human nature from the start. 
That body was entirely unfit to be the permanent 
residence of the spirit, and was destined to give up, 
by the same processes to which the living organism 
is now subject, its constituent parts to the great 
bosom from which they were taken. 

But the thought cannot stop here. It is pregnant 
with another momentous conclusion. The reunion 
with another material fabric, adapted to an immortal 
life, must also have been provided for ; this, too, by 
original activities implanted at the first creation. 
What they precisely are, when they begin to operate, 
and how they will develop themselves in the far 
future, is one of the secrets of Him who " worketh 
all things according to the counsel of his will." 
Even the ordinary agencies, constantly at work around 
us, are, as already stated, known only by their effects. 
Not one could be predicted beforehand. Historians 
of science note, with curious interest, certain pre- 
sentiments of natural laws which floated, like the 
half-waking dreams in the minds of men of genius, 
long before their actual discovery. But the really 
curious part of the matter is, that when man dreams 
so much, so very few instances are recorded that 
the human mind should at all times have so blun- 



408 



SERMONS. 



dered and floundered, like a drunken man, in the 
dark, whenever it undertook to pronounce on the 
truth of things, — a priori, as it is called, — and 
without the previous teachings of experience. Man 
is a wretched prophet, almost sure to err where the 
future is anything more than a mere reflection of the 
past. Who, to use again the apostolic illustration 
already referred to, could have announced, at the 
first planting of a seed-corn in the earth, that, after 
lying torpid for months and even years, it would rise 
up with a richer life than it possessed before ? 
Doubtless the first manifestation of such a change 
filled the simple observer not only with wonder, but 
awe and terror, as if the epoch of miracles was re- 
commencing, and another creating day had dawned. 
Yet observation teaches us, that it is the effect of 
a prolific virtue, originally implanted, when God 
said, " Let the earth bring forth herb yielding seed 
and fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed 
is in the earth." We now expect and demand it. 
The inscrutability of the process, our inability to 
trace the secret workings of those vital energies by 
which the change is effected, cease to startle us, merely 
because we are accustomed to the fact. It is pre- 
cisely so with our subject. A time will come when a 
comprehensive survey of the great whole, and the 
potencies which govern it, will show that the re- 
union of soul and body is not a miracle, nor divine 
afterthought, nor patch upon a rent, but belongs to 
the legitimate order of nature ; not, indeed, the poor 
contracted nature of which we have present cogni- 
zance, — a pailful out of the Atlantic, — but that 



SERMONS. 



409 



which corresponds with the greatness and majesty of 
the Being who " spoke and it was done ; who com- 
manded and it stood fast." Meanwhile let us ac- 
knowledge that there are " more things in heaven and 
earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. " Noth- 
ing is more modest than genuine science. It never 
forgets that it stands in the midst of a triangle, en- 
compassed by three grand immensities, — the immen- 
sity of God, the immensity of the universe, and the 
immensity of human ignorance. 

To some there may be a difficulty in adopting the 
view of the subject just taken, founded on the in- 
stantaneousness ascribed in the Holy Scriptures to the 
resurrection. It shall take place "in a moment, in 
the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet ; " which 
phrases seem to exclude the gradual operation of gen- 
eral laws, and demand a special act of power identical 
with that which originally called into existence the 
universe. But the objection has no force. Every 
day the student of nature perceives stupendous 
effects from processes so slow and gradual that they 
are scarcely, if at all, observed ; and the result seems 
to come out not by evolution, but sudden, instanta- 
neous projection. Take the well-known " century 
plant," as an example, which, after vegetating dur- 
ing a hundred years a rough, unsightly shrub, ex- 
hibiting no marked appearance of change or prog- 
ress, bursts forth into all its floral magnificence in a 
single night. So it may be with the precious seed 
whose development is the theme of our inspired 
apostle. That " moment," that " twinkling of an 
eye," that " last trump," may only express the glori- 

35 



410 



SERMONS. 



ous consummation of a series of operations produced 
by influences secretly at work during a long series of 
ages, and which commenced their action when the 
first man was laid in the first grave. We would not 
dogmatically affirm on such a subject. All we aim 
at is, to invoke reason, analogy, and the common ob- 
servation of mankind, against those who would dog- 
matically deny. In opposition to them we hold, as 
infinitely probable, that the seminal principles of our 
corporeal immortality, like those of our spiritual, are 
already sown; that their germination and complete 
unfolding into future life is, at this very moment, a 
law of physics, though one not jet scientifically ex- 
plored, and, therefore, not having place in our mean 
and meagre philosophies. 

Let me now advert to a few of the probabilities in 
tavor of a reunion to the body : for, though the light 
of nature cannot either discover or prove it, inde- 
pendently of a divine attestation, yet, from various 
sources, an amount of presumptive evidence may be 
gathered that is not without force ; while the trains 
of reflection opened up are highly pleasing. Look 
at the admirable structure of the body. One of the 
most satisfactory arguments from reason for the con- 
tinued existence of the soul is its lofty endowments, 
which render the thought intolerable that it must 
close its career with this brief life. The ancient 
pagans well understood and admirably improved this 
topic in their moral speculations ; and one is apt to 
wonder that they were not conducted by it to some- 
thing like a belief in the doctrine under present con- 
sideration. 



SERMONS. 



411 



When we think how fearfully and wonderfully we 
are made, — how exquisitely the material part is or- 
ganized, not only for animal enjoyment, but for com- 
panionship with the immaterial principle in all its 
spiritual actings, — it is extremely difficult, on the 
assumption that death is a finality, to avoid exclaim- 
ing with the psalmist, in one of his melancholy 
moods, " Surely, thou hast made all men in vain." 
Why such expense in erecting the most beautiful of 
edifices, when, in a few months or years at furthest, 
it must be torn down and lie in the dust forever ? 
Especially will this thought be impressive when we 
compare its duration with that of numerous animals, 
and even vegetables. How many are the beasts of 
the field who trample on the tombs of parents and 
their children ! How many generations has the lofty 
oak seen prostrated, before its giant strength be- 
trayed the least symptom of decay ! And is it truly 
the divine constitution that the ignoble and valueless 
abide, while worth and beauty pass away ? Scarcely. 
May we not rather view the taking down of our 
earthly tabernacle as a prelude to its being raised 
again, more fair, stately, and permanent ? 

There are presumptions of another kind drawn from 
analogy. Glancing over the wide domain of life that 
surrounds us on all sides, like the atmosphere we 
breathe, we discover changes of various kinds equiva- 
lent to resurrections. The cedar that reigns over the 
forest is but the resurrection of a cedar that reigned 
before. The regular transformations and progres- 
sions from state to state of many animals encourage 
a pleasing hope that when the sepulchre closes upon 



412 



SERMONS. 



us its iron gates, our career in the body is not termi- 
nated. A few days since that gilded butterfly, which 
spreads its colors to the sun, was a crawling worm, 
which, after a definite period, entered a coffin curi- 
ously manufactured by itself, and there lay in state, 
exhibiting every appearance of death. All of us are 
acquainted with the phenomenon of animal torpidity. 
No sooner do the blasts of winter begin to announce 
their approach by cloudy days, chilling nights, and 
low moanings in the distance, than whole tribes of 
animals retreat to their coverts, and undergo a species 
of death, till quickened again by the genial influences 
of spring. We ourselves furnish a lesson to our- 
selves. What is sleep but a kind of anticipative 
death ? What more akin to the gloom of the sepul- 
chre than midnight, when all animated nature is 
sunk in helpless inaction ? 

The strong desire for reunion is not without its 
force in this connection. It deserves our notice, that 
in all the analogies quoted the animal is disposed for 
his coming change by a powerful instinct or pre- 
sentiment. He seems to look forward to and de- 
sire it ; and many of his preparatory arrangements 
are so happily adapted that they excite our pro- 
found admiration. Does not the same spirit of 
prophecy, anticipation, desire, hope, characterize the 
human animal ? How we linger round the cold 
remains of a friend, till absolutely driven from it ! 
How we care for it, as for some precious gem not 
always to be trodden in the dust ! How reverently 
we commit it to the keeping of its mother earth ! 
bidding it good-night, as if in attendance on the 



SERMONS. 



413 



couches of royalty ! How sacred is the spot where 
he lies ! How often do we retire there, not alone to 
weep, but to hold sweet communion with the de- 
parted ; and say, u We shall meet again." And, 
when under the teachings of the great Master, we 
ponder his words : " I am the resurrection and the 
life ; whoso believeth on me shall never die," what 
rapture pours its full tide through the soul ! We 
seize the blessed annunciation, as Mary clasped the 
knees of her risen Lord, and will not let it go. All 
our visions of future happiness cluster round the 
idea, and receive from it their form and fashion. 
We shall see the glories of the celestial city, walk its 
golden streets, hear its music ; and the arches of its 
great temple shall resound forever with our songs. 
Such things may have little weight to the speculative 
understanding when viewed apart and in detail ; but 
in a mass they are to the heart impressive. They 
are significant symbols inscribed in the book of na- 
ture, though none but the thoughtful read and under- 
stand them. They do not demonstrate ; but are 
pleasant echoes from the air, the forest, and the 
depths of the human spirit, to the voice of the 
heavenly oracle. 

Attend, now, to some recorded Scripture facts, 
which, proving that cases have already occurred, re- 
move all strangeness from the idea of a universal 
victory over the grave. Scarcely do you open your 
Bibles, when you come upon a fact of this kind, 
startling by its unexpectedness, and thrilling by the 
beautiful simplicity of the relation. As a recom- 
pense for his fidelity in the midst of faithless con- 

35* 



414 



SERMONS. 



temporaries, Enoch is translated to heaven, both sonl 
and body. " He was not, for God took him." This 
was not, we confess, precisely a resurrection ; but it 
intimates, with great clearness, that the body shall 
play its part in a future life. Proceeding further, we 
are astonished at beholding Elijah ascending, in a 
chariot of flame, to glory ; proclaiming thus to all 
revolving ages, not only that there was a way 
opened for men into the highest heavens, but that 
their very bodies had access to the presence of God. 
Previously, however, we see him recalling the de- 
parted spirit of the son of the Sidonian widow. 
Elisha, his successor, performs the same office for 
another, showing that he inherits his Master's spirit 
and power. Even death does not rob him of it ; for 
no sooner does a dead body touch his corpse, than it 
revives and proclaims the praises of the Lord God of 
Elijah. 

I grant that the doubt is possible whether these 
narratives, allowing them the fair measure of inspira- 
tion which an enlightened theology concedes to the 
Old Testament historical annals, will bear the whole 
superstructure of inference that has been erected on 
them. But, I insist that, viewed in no other light 
than as reflections of the religious ideas entertained in 
an age of vision and prophecy, they are fraught with 
interest. They show that the germs of a complete 
Christianity not only existed, but were quickening 
and warming into life, even at that early period. 
The Christian instinct was clearly at work in the 
hearts of the pious. It was not waiting for a college 
of apostles to recite its creed, but recited it as well 



SJSJR m o n s. 



415 



as the best apostle of them all : " I believe in the 
resurrection of the dead, and life everlasting." Cer- 
tainly, the idea of an embodied existence in a future 
state was received by the church in very ancient 
times ; not, perhaps, in a dogmatic form, but as a 
sentiment, or holy intuition, of which she could give 
no other account than that it formed a part of her 
religious consciousness. 

But we come now to an example in regard to which 
there can be no mistake. Jesus appears, — that won- 
derful being who stands alone in the world's history, 
— in whom the infinite and finite were so mysteriously 
blended, that for a moment, at the first perusal of 
the record, we stand amazed, — in perplexity whether 
to adore the God, or embrace, with human tender- 
ness, the brother, till we resolve the problem by com- 
bining both in one undivided act of trust, worship, 
and fervent love. 

The daughter of Jairus having gone the way of 
all the earth, He enters the place where she lay, took 
her hand and said, " Talitha-cumi," and the damsel 
arose and walked. In the course of his benevolent 
peregrinations, he approached the city of Nain. A 
bier meets him containing the only son of a widow. 
Moved with compassion, our great High Priest, who 
is not ashamed to have a fellow-feeling with human 
sorrow, says, " Young man, arise ; and he arose." 
Soon after, Lazarus goes down to the tomb. Four 
days elapse, during which he continues sleeping and 
festering in his dark prison-house. Jesus arrives, — 
drops a tear, but not over the loss of his friend ; for 
he commands : " Lazarus, come forth ; and straight- 
way he arose." 



416 



SERM ONS. 



Of these miracles, we take the most contracted 
possible view, if we consider them as designed merely 
to give high ideas of the Saviour's power, that spec- 
tators might be thrown into a stupid maze, which 
would force them to acknowledge the divinity of his 
mission. Surely they had a deeper meaning. They 
symbolized the nature of his kingdom ; the grand 
order of facts and actualities into which it should be 
developed. In a word, the singular interest always 
evinced by Christ hi the human body was designed 
to familiarize us with the idea of its future fortunes ; 
its participation in the blessings he procured as the 
restorer of our fallen nature. Without this supposi- 
tion, they are sportings of giant strength, destitute of 
true dignity and elevation ; because imparting no val- 
uable lesson, and only gratifying the vulgar appetite 
for what is strange. 

Advance a step further in his history. In the ex- 
amples just cited, you see the God, breathing over 
the slain, and, by his divine prerogative, restoring 
the life he originally communicated. Next, behold 
the man himself, though not for himself, tasting 
death's bitterness. At the dawn of the third fol- 
lowing day, earth proclaims, by her convulsions, the 
second birth of her glorious Lord, and he comes 
forth to the confusion of his enemies and the rapture 
of desponding friends. Henceforth he becomes the 
plague of death and the destruction of the grave ; in 
testimony of which we are told many came from 
their sepulchres, and went into the holy city, and 
appeared unto many. Thus, from what has been, 
we gather precious intimations of what shall be. 



SERMONS. 



417 



corner of the veil that conceals the world of invisi- 
bles has been raised, that we may look in and see on 
its highest throne, clothed with human flesh, that 
Mighty One who declared on earth that when he was 
lifted up he would draw all men unto him. 

Our conceptions, however, on this point, will fall 
exceedingly short of the truth, if we consider the 
resurrection of Jesus as only carrying with it the 
force of a great example. He is not only the first 
fruits of the immortal harvest, but, in a sense, the 
harvest itself, — the whole human nature he came to 
redeem being in him virtually and potentially, 
through the mystic union which binds them together 
as the head with its body, the root with its branches. 
His victory over the grave is, therefore, infinitely 
more than a precedent ; it is a principle including the 
triumph of all his followers. Bold and daring is the 
language of the great apostle on this subject : in 
many parts of his writings going so far as to repre- 
sent Christians as actually risen and standing in 
their ascension robes before the throne. " And hath 
raised us up and made us sit together in heavenly 
places in Christ Jesus." " Buried with him in bap- 
tism, wherein ye are also risen with him." " If ye be 
risen with Christ, seek those things which are above." 
See here the power of Christian faith. Standing on 
the heights of holy contemplation, it sees the blue 
hills of Canaan as objects close upon the eye, and 
already reached. With such intensity of confidence 
in the issue does it see them, that it takes no account 
of the dark and turbid stream that yet separates 
from the happy shore. " Our life is hid with Christ 



418 



SERMONS. 



in God ; and when he which is our life shall appear, 
then shall we also appear with him in glory." It must 
be so. The head can no more exist without the 
body than the body without the head. 

As to the direct proofs of our doctrine, we waive 
the discussion as needless. None but the utterly 
blind, or victims of some monstrous delusion, can 
fail of perceiving them. The truth shines like a sun- 
beam on every page, and looms up from every para- 
graph. Nor, indeed, is this surprising; for so closely 
is it interwoven with the whole texture of Christian- 
ity, that the denial of it subverts the very foundations 
of our faith. " Yea," says the apostle, " we are 
found false witnesses of God ; because we have testi- 
fied of God that he raised up Christ, whom he raised 
not up if so be the dead rise not : for if the dead 
rise not, then is not Christ raised ; and if Christ be 
not raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins : 
then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are 
perished." 

In improving the subject, let us observe how much 
the human race is indebted to the gospel. Of all 
systems of religion, it is the only one that has satisfac- 
torily exhibited the doctrine discussed. Consult the 
representatives of ancient wisdom, and you find that 
great as was the multitude of thoughts within them, 
and infinite the variety of their speculations, the 
dream of it never entered their minds. By aid, in- 
deed, of a prolific imagination, they excogitated a 
sort of substitute, — fancying departed spirits to be 
surrounded by a condensed atmosphere, which they 
called a shade, presenting all the lineaments of the 



SERM ONS 



419 



body while on earth. But this, it is evident, was a 
doctrine very different from that of a resurrection, 
as well as a thousand times more visionary. In con- 
sequence of ignorance here, the best of them enjoyed 
small comfort from their views of the immortality of 
the soul. There is something very endearing in the 
connection which exists between the body and the 
spirit. So admirably are they adjusted to each other, 
— like the strings of a musical instrument, — so won- 
derfully sympathize with each other's movements, 
that the idea of disruption produces the same kind 
of shock we feel at hearing of a rupture between two 
intimate, long-endeared friends. They are twins, — 
born together, living together, — always rejoicing in 
each other's presence. And must all this end ? Have 
we been united by such tender bonds only to experi- 
ence the pangs of eternal separation ? Almost could 
I wish that the stroke which laid low my friend, had 
also fallen on me, that I might accompany him to 
the land of forgetfulness. Something like this, me- 
thinks, would be the expostulation of the soul. The 
vague notion of a pure, spiritual immortality — a con- 
tinued existence of the principle of thought, divorced 
from connection with matter — is not calculated to 
satisfy the needs of the heart. A blank is felt in the 
belief which gives a cold and dreary aspect to the 
whole, and which nothing can fill up but the doc- 
trine of re-union to the body, — the doctrine of a 
whole, unmutilated humanity. 

It is undoubtedly true, that we may conceive of 
the soul as a pure, spiritual essence, acting independ- 
ently of any corporeal vehicle. Such, we are con-' 



420 



SERM ON S. 



strained to imagine, will be the case during the 
interval between death and the resurrection. But it 
is equally true that in this provisional state of being 
her powers will be extremely limited, and shut out 
entirely from the field of external nature. Our organs 
of sense are the sole medium through which we ob- 
tain an acquaintance with this department of knowl- 
edge. It has no existence to us, but in certain visible 
and tangible qualities, which, it is unreasonable to 
suppose, God will impart by new and miraculous ex- 
pedients. The disembodied spirit must, therefore, 
stand completely isolated from matter ; capable, in- 
deed, of a transcendental happiness in the contem- 
plation of other ideas, but excluded, necessarily, 
from the fair garden of this outer world, the hills 
and dales, the rivers, trees, and plains, the sun and 
starry skies, among which she now expatiates with, 
alas, too fond delight. Perhaps, the reason of her 
temporary unclothing is, that she may smooth her 
ruffled pinions, and recover from that earthly taint 
she has contracted by exclusive devotion here to 
things seen and temporal. However this is, it seems 
absolutely necessary that she be joined by her old 
companion to re-establish her relations with the fair 
variety of things around her, and become a successful 
student of the magnificent mechanism of the uni- 
verse. Immortality is without it little better than a 
jejune abstraction, unfit to grapple with the coarse 
realities of life, and ever ready to slide out of the 
mind altogether. The phantom, to become really im- 
pressive, must be clothed in flesh and blood ; the 
idea, to retain its hold, must be solidified by union 



SERMONS. 



421 



with the material subject which may impart a portion 
of its own fixedness. 

But to estimate the value of our doctrine, we must 
regard it in another connection. It was one of the 
most powerful elements of that great moral force 
that Christianity brought to bear against the vile 
sensuality in which mankind was sunk, at the period 
of our Saviour's advent, apparently beyond the possi^ 
bility of recovery. Look at the great apostle, ad- 
dressing, on this subject, the most voluptuous and 
corrupted city on the face of the earth ! " Flee 
fornication," is the text of his discourse. Your 
bodies are sacred to the Lord ; they are members of 
that blessed Redeemer who died for you ; they are 
the temples of the Holy Ghost ; they shall be raised 
up at the last day. Will you dare prostitute them to 
offices which would degrade a brute, and cut your- 
selves off from the blessedness of the children of 
God ? I ask you, was not pleading of this kind 
more potent a thousand times to gain its end, than 
all the elegant speculations that dropped from the 
honeyed lips of Plato ? There was nothing in it wire- 
drawn or obscure. It supplied to the poor Gentile a 
distinct, tangible reason why he should abstain from 
pollution ; for it told him that his body was an hon- 
orable part of him, which he was bound to reverence, 
because God honored it. In the days of his igno- 
rance nothing better could be expected than that he 
should treat it as a mere instrument of lust. It was 
good for nothing else. In a short time it must die, 
rot, and perish forever : why, then, we may suppose 

36 



422 



SERMONS. 



him saying, should I treat the miserable thing with 
any ceremony ? Why not kick and cuff it like a 
dog, if I can obtain any gratification in this way ? 
— the miserable cur will never appear hereafter to 
complain of its treatment : " Let me eat and drink, 
for to-morrow I die." 

But how differently does he now view the subject 
in the light of Christian truth ! What a change is 
wrought in his estimate of that carcass he thought 
so vile ! All its meanness is gone ; a halo of glory 
rests on its head ; its cheek is flushed with an im- 
mortal hope ; its sparkling eyes look upward to the 
heavens ; a divine vigor pervades every limb. It has 
become a worthy companion of the never-dying spirit 
and of angels who see the face of God. Ask him 
now whether he will not cherish and respect it ; 
whether watching over its purity, that he may pre- 
sent it, at last, as a chaste virgin unto Christ, be not 
worth his most strenuous exertions. In this way, 
our holy religion, by plans and methods of its own, 
heals the diseases of the mind ; proving that the 
foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weak- 
ness of God stronger than men. 

Again, we here see the moral idea of a Christian 
funeral. You are aware that, before the coming of 
Christ, the general practice of the heathen was to 
bum their dead ; and that the change to burying 
took place as soon as a man with his family became 
Christian. The converts to the gospel considered 
the body in the light of seed sown in the ground, 
which should certainly spring up at the appointed 



SERMONS. 



423 



time. Hence, they recoiled with horror from the 
custom of consuming with fire (so expressive of con- 
tempt and suggestive of annihilation) , and consigned 
it to the earth, as precious grain : thus signifying 
their esteem for it, and their confident belief that it 
should rise again. Accordingly they called the re- 
positories of their dead, cemeteries or sleeping-places. 
We have adopted and use the word, without always 
calling up its beautiful import. 

Let these reflections attend you while you pay the 
last solemn offices to departed Christian friends. 
Parent, from whom has been torn the tender bud 
that was just commencing to put forth its blossoms ; 
child, who hast lost the pious guide of thy youth ; 
widow, bereaved of that loving companion with 
whom thou didst so often take sweet counsel, and 
walk to the house of God in company ; — why weep- 
est thou ? That beloved one is not dead, but sleepeth. 
He is safe ; infinitely safer than if reposing in your 
arms. He has gone down to the tomb to undergo a 
purifying process ; and the result will be, in due 
time, his corruption putting on incorruption ; his 
mortal immortality ! 

Finally, let us reflect that though our doctrine be 
good tidings, it is only such to the penitent and be- 
lieving. To you who make no claim to this charac- 
ter, it is not a message of love and joy, but of blank 
despair. True, you shall be raised ; you shall hear, 
with others, the voice of the archangel, and the 
trump of God ; but on that awful day when you 
stand before the judgment-seat, see the books opened 



424 



SERMONS. 



and hear a sentence that will extinguish every spark 
of hope, you will realize the solemn truth I now pro- 
claim in the ears of all : " As there is a resurrec- 
tion unto life, so there is a resurrection unto dam- 
nation." 



